The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) was the first major element in NASA's Mission to Planet Earth. It was designed to make a systematic study of the stratosphere and provide new data on the mesosphere and thermosphere. The satellite was launched on 12th September 1991.

This dataset contains standard data concerning stratospheric temperature, geopotential height and wind components produced by the upper atmosphere research satellite data assimilation system at the UK Met Office.

The data assimilation system is a development of the scheme used at the Met Office for operational weather forecasting, which has been extended to cover the stratosphere. The primary product is a daily analysis (at 1200 UTC) which is produced using operational observations only. For short periods of particular interest the analyses are available at 6-hourly intervals. Assimilation experiments using UARS (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite) data in addition to operational meteorological observations have been carried out for limited periods.