Sulfur Dioxide (L2__SO2___) | TROPOMI Observing Our Future | TROPOMI: TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument

Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) enters the Earth's atmosphere through both natural sources (~30%) and anthropogenic processes (~70%). It plays a significant role in atmospheric chemistry on both local and global scales, with impacts ranging from short-term pollution events to long-term climate effects. Monitoring SO₂ is vital for tracking industrial emissions and detecting volcanic activity, which poses a specific risk to aviation safety alongside volcanic ash.

Key Features and Applications

The TROPOMI SO₂ product is essential for the identification of enhanced SO₂ levels, allowing for the real-time detection and monitoring of volcanic eruptions and anthropogenic pollution sources. By providing high-resolution global data, the product supports air quality assessment and disaster mitigation efforts. To ensure operational utility, the data is typically made available in near-real-time, within approximately three hours of measurement.

Validation Summary

Dataset Specifications

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

S5P_OFFL_L2__SO2____20260201T231910_20260202T010040_43039_03_020800_20260203T215211.nc S5P_NRTI_L2__SO2____20260201T234313_20260201T234813_43039_03_020800_20260202T005414.nc S5P_RPRO_L2__SO2____20220701T230527_20220702T004657_24439_03_020401_20230315T012451.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 12-Jul-2020 Reprocessed (RPRO) dataset: from 30-Apr-2018 to 03-Aug-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	3.5 x 7.0 km (across x along track), at beginning of mission 3.5 x 5.5 km (across x along track), since 6 August 2019
Processor Version	02.xx.xx, with x=any digit between 0 and 9

Dataset Specifications V1
Temporal Coverage	From 30-Apr-2018 to 12-Jul-2020
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	3.5 x 7.0 km (across x along track), at beginning of mission 3.5 x 5.5 km (across x along track), since 6 August 2019
Processor Version	01.xx.xx, with x=any digit between 0 and 9

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 and Related Datasets

Technical documentation on the S5P/TROPOMI Level-1B and Level-2 products can be found on the 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), 2020, TROPOMI Level 2 Sulfur Dioxide Total Column products. Version 02. European Space Agency. https://doi.org/10.5270/S5P-74eidii

Dataset Citation Guidelines V1

Copernicus Sentinel-5P (processed by ESA), 2018, TROPOMI Level 2 Sulfur Dioxide Total Column products. Version 01. European Space Agency. https://doi.org/10.5270/S5P-yr8kdpp