Methane (CH4) is, after carbon dioxide (CO2), the most important contributor to the anthropogenically enhanced greenhouse effect. Roughly three-quarters of methane emissions are anthropogenic and as such it is important to continue the record of satellite-based measurements. TROPOMI aims at providing CH4 column concentrations with high sensitivity to the Earth's surface, good spatio/temporal coverage, and sufficient accuracy to facilitate inverse modelling of sources and sinks.

The output product consists of the retrieved methane column and a row vector referred to as the column averaging kernel A. The column averaging kernel describes how the retrieved column relates to the true profile and should be used in validation exercises (when possible) or use of the product in source/sink inverse modelling. The output product also contains altitude levels of the layer interfaces to which the column averaging kernel corresponds. Additional output for Level-2 data products: viewing geometry, precision of retrieved methane, residuals of the fit, quality flags (cloudiness, terrain roughness etc.) and retrieved albedo and aerosol properties. The latter properties are required for a posteriori filtering and for estimation of total retrieval error.

The S5P mission flies in loose formation (about 3.5 – 5 minutes behind) with the S-NPP (SUOMI-National Polar-orbiting Partnership) mission to use VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) cloud information to select cloud free TROPOMI pixels for high quality methane retrieval. Starting from version v02.06.00, a backup filter for cloud-contaminated pixels has been introduced to make the algorithm independent from VIIRS data and allow the retrieval even in their absence.

More information and examples

Dataset Specifications

Examples of filenames (a.k.a. granules):

S5P_OFFL_L2__CH4____20260201T231910_20260202T010040_43039_03_020901_20260203T160126.nc S5P_NRTI_L2__CH4____20260201T234313_20260201T234813_43039_03_020901_20260202T005320.nc S5P_RPRO_L2__CH4____20220701T230527_20220702T004657_24439_03_020400_20230131T110442.nc

Elements in the filename separated by underscores after the initial "S5P":
* processing type: near-real time (NRTI), off-line (OFFL), reprocessing of off-line (RPRO)
* product identifier [10 char.]
* start date and time of granule
* end date and time of granule
* orbit number [5 char.]
* collection number [2 char.]
* version number [6 char.]
* production date and time
In case of OFFL and RPRO granules are full orbits, for NRTI granules are 5-minute chunks of orbits.

Dataset Specifications V2

Temporal Coverage

Since 01-Jul-2021

Reprocessed (RPRO) dataset: from 30-Apr-2018 to 25-Jul-2022

Spatial Coverage

~2600 km swath

Full daily surface coverage of radiance and reflectance measurements for latitudes > 7° and < -7°, and better than 95 % coverage for latitudes in the interval [-7°, 7°]

Spatial Resolution at Nadir

7.0 x 7.0 km (across x along track), at beginning of mission

7.0 x 5.5 km (across x along track), since 6 August 2019

Processor Version02.xx.xx, with x=any digit between 0 and 9

Dataset Specifications V1

Temporal Coverage

From 30-Apr-2018 to 01-Jul-2021

Spatial Coverage

~2600 km swath

Full daily surface coverage of radiance and reflectance measurements for latitudes > 7° and < -7°, and better than 95 % coverage for latitudes in the interval [-7°, 7°]

Spatial Resolution at Nadir

7.0 x 7.0 km (across x along track), at beginning of mission

7.0 x 5.5 km (across x along track), since 6 August 2019

Processor Version01.xx.xx, with x=any digit between 0 and 9

Processing Level

Level-2 processing of S5P/TROPOMI data.

How to Access the Data

The data related to this product and to the other S5P/TROPOMI products are accessible via the  Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem (CDSE).

Documentation & Related Datasets

Technical documentation on the S5P/TROPOMI Level-1B and Level-2 products can be found on the  SentiWiki S5P Products page.

Dataset Citation Guidelines

Users, who, in their research, use ESA Earth Observation data that have been assigned a DOI, are asked to use it when citing the data source in their publications:

Dataset Citation Guidelines V2

Copernicus Sentinel-5P (processed by ESA), 2021, TROPOMI Level 2 Methane products. Version 02. European Space Agency. https://doi.org/10.5270/S5P-3lcdqiv

Dataset Citation Guidelines V1

Copernicus Sentinel-5P (processed by ESA), 2019, TROPOMI Level 2 Methane products. Version 01. European Space Agency. https://doi.org/10.5270/S5P-3p6lnwd