The GOZCARDS Source Data for Water Vapor Monthly Zonal Averages on a Geodetic Latitude and Pressure Grid product (GozSmlpH2O) contains zonal means and related information (standard deviation, minimum/maximum value, etc.), calculated from original (‘Level 2’ type) satellite instruments and products. The source H2O data are from the following satellite instruments: HALOE (v19; 1991-2005), UARS MLS (v5; 1991-1997), ACE-FTS (v2.2; 2004-onward), Aura MLS (v2.2; 2004 onward). The vertical pressure range for H2O is from 147 to 0.01 hPa. The source data are used to create a merged product contained in a separate data product with the short name GozMmlpH2O.

The GozSmlpH2O source data are written using the new netCDF4 enhanced model using CF-1 metadata attributes. The data variables are organized into a Group hierarchy structure. Global Attributes describing the data file (e.g. data start/end time, spatial extent, etc.) are located at the file/root level. Users can use netCDF enabled tools to view the data. Since netCDF4 is based on the HDF5 format, HDF5 readers will also work with these data files.

Parameters contained in the data files include the following:
Variable Name    |Description                                  |Units
/HALOE/average   |Water Zonal Average from HALOE               |(mol/mol)
/UARS MLS/average|Water Zonal Average from UARS MLS            |(mol/mol)
/ACE-FTS/average |Water Zonal Average from ACE-FTS             |(mol/mol)
/Aura MLS/average|Water Zonal Average from Aura MLS            |(mol/mol)
End of parameter informationGOZCARDS (Global OZone Chemistry And Related trace gas Data records for the Stratosphere) refers to a commonly-formatted Earth system data record (ESDR) for stratospheric composition, of high relevance to the issue of ozone decline and recovery. High-quality long-term ozone and related trace gas data records are needed to (a) evaluate and understand composition changes in the atmosphere and (b) constrain model representations of atmospheric dynamics and photochemistry.