NASA's ASDC made available the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) Clouds and Radiative Swath (CRS) Terra Flight Model 2 (FM2) Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Edition4A data product from the CERES-FM2 instrument on the Terra platform. This product provides instantaneous cloud properties, TOA fluxes, and vertical flux profiles at multiple atmospheric levels for both clear-sky and total-sky conditions. This is a limited dataset that corresponds to the Arctic Radiation-Cloud-Aerosol-Surface Interaction Experiment, ARCSIX. The dataset contains scan pattern other than cross-track and some observations align with specific ARCSIX objectives.
Project Background
CERES is a key component of the Earth Observing System (EOS) program and a follow-on to the successful Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) mission. The CERES instruments provide radiometric measurements of the Earth's atmosphere from three broadband channels. Two CERES instruments (FM1 and FM2) were launched into polar orbit on board the Earth Observing System (EOS) flagship Terra on December 18, 1999, with the mission's primary objective to improve understanding of Earth's radiation budget and cloud properties.
Data Products
CER_CRS_Terra-FM2-MODIS_Edition4A: Contains one hour of instantaneous CERES data for a single scanner instrument, including geolocation, geometry, packet identification, minimal cloud properties, and TOA fluxes from the CERES SSF product. For each CERES footprint, the CRS product contains vertical flux profiles evaluated at six atmospheric levels: surface, 850-, 500-, 200-, 70-, and 0.01-hPa for both clear-sky and total-sky conditions.
Note: This product contains only a subset of variables from the SSF and should be used in conjunction with the CER_SSF_Terra-FM2-MODIS_Edition4A product.
Technical Details
- Temporal coverage: 2024-05-01 - 2024-08-31
- Spatial coverage: global
- Spatial resolution: 20 Kilometers x 20 Kilometers
- Processing level: 2
- Version: Edition4A
- Platform: Terra
- Instrument: CERES-FM2
- File Format: HDF4
For questions about this data release or assistance with data access, please contact the ASDC User Services team or visit the Earthdata Forum.