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CERES Clouds and TOA/SFC Flux Processing Data Sets

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CERES Data Products | ERBE-like Processing | Clouds and Computed Flux Profile Processing | Processing Level Details

CERES Clouds and TOA/SFC Flux processing focus on Top-of-Atmophere (TOA) radiation, includes parameterized models for surface radiation estimation. Cloud detection using multi-spectral VIRS/MODIS imager. Vastly improved angular directional models allowing cloud property dependent anisotropy. Time-space averaging includes 1hourly geostationary radiance data to improve diurnal cycle modeling between CERES Flux measurements.

Image map for Clouds and TOA/SFC Flux data flow. Single Scanner Footprint TOA/Surface Fluxes and Clouds (SSF) Monthly Gridded TOA/Surface Fluxes and Clouds (SFC) Monthly TOA/Surface Averages (SRBAVG) SRBAVG ISCCP D2-like SRBAVG Daily Energy Balanced and Filled (EBAF)
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The complete CERES processing and data flow diagram.

More details on CERES Clouds and TOA/SFC Flux Processing Data Sets: SSF | SFC | SRBAVG | EBAF
Single Scanner Footprint TOA/Surface Fluxes and Clouds (SSF)
The Single Scanner Footprint TOA/Surface Fluxes and Clouds (SSF) product contains one hour of instantaneous Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) data for a single scanner instrument. The SSF combines instantaneous CERES data with scene information from a higher resolution imager such as Visible/Infrared Scanner (VIRS) on TRMM or Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Terra and Aqua. Scene identification and cloud properties are defined at the higher imager resolution and these data are averaged over the larger CERES footprint. For each CERES footprint, the SSF contains the number of cloud layers and for each layer the cloud amount, height, temperature, pressure, optical depth, emissivity, ice and liquid water path, and water particle size. The SSF also contains the CERES filtered radiances for the total, shortwave (SW), and window (WN) channels and the unfiltered SW, longwave (LW), and WN radiances. The SW, LW, and WN radiances at spacecraft altitude are converted to Top-of-the-Atmosphere (TOA) fluxes based on the imager defined scene. These TOA fluxes are used to estimate surface fluxes.
File Temporal Coverage: Instantaneous
File Spatial Coverage: CERES FOV
Product Type: Clouds and TOA/SFC Flux
Product Level: 2
File Frequency: 1/hour
Nominal Size/File: 60 MB
Applicable Studies: Angular dependent of radiance
Cloud and aerosol properties comparison
Cloud and aerosol radiative forcing estimate or comparison with other estimate
Comparison of radiation, aerosol and cloud properties with model other then GCM (ie. LES, CRM)
Interpretation of radiation cloud and aerosol property variability
Surface flux calculation with simple transfer model
TOA flux only comparison
Documents: SSF Description/Abstract
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Monthly Gridded TOA/Surface Fluxes and Clouds (SFC)
The Monthly Gridded TOA/Surface Fluxes and Clouds (SFC) archival data product contains hourly single scanner flux and cloud parameters averaged over regions in a 1.0-degree nested grid. The data are processed and written in local time. Input to the SFC Subsystem is the Single Scanner Footprint TOA/Surface Fluxes and Clouds (SSF) archival data product. Each SFC covers a single month swath from a single CERES instrument mounted on one satellite. The product is written in HDF and contains metadata as well as gridded science data. For TRMM, data will be organized onto eight SFC HDF files, each containing data for ten 1.0-degree equal-angle zones. For Terra and Aqua, data will be organized onto 36 SFC HDF files, each containing data for five 1.0-degree equal-angle zones. Each record contains spatially averaged data for an individual region. The science data are Vdata with multiple records. Each record contains spatially averaged data for an individual region.
File Temporal Coverage: Hourly
File Spatial Coverage: Gridded regional
Product Type: Clouds and TOA/SFC Flux
Product Level: 3
File Frequency: #zones/month
Nominal Size/File: 60 MB
Applicable Studies: Cloud and aerosol properties comparison
Surface flux calculation with simple transfer model
TOA flux only comparison
Documents: SFC Description/Abstract
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Monthly TOA/Surface Averages (SRBAVG)
The Monthly TOA/Surface Averages (SRBAVG) product contains monthly and monthly hourly regional, zonal, and global averages of the Top-of-the-Atmosphere (TOA) and surface LW and SW fluxes and the observed cloud conditions for each 1-degree equal-angle region.
File Temporal Coverage: Monthly
  The CERES Team is also planning a daily average version of this product for 2007.
File Spatial Coverage: Globally averaged, Gridded regional, Zonally averaged
Product Type: Clouds and TOA/SFC Flux
Product Level: 3
File Frequency: 3/month
Nominal Size/File: SRBAVG1: 245 MB
SRBAVG2: 500 MB
SRBAVG3: 515 MB
Applicable Studies: Angular dependent of radiance
Cloud and aerosol properties comparison
Cloud and aerosol radiative forcing estimate or comparison with other estimate
Comparison of radiation, aerosol and cloud properties with model other then GCM (ie. LES, CRM)
Comparison with GCMs
Instrument study
Interpretation of radiation cloud and aerosol property variability
Surface flux calculation with simple transfer model
TOA flux only comparison
Documents: SRBAVG Description/Abstract
more details | order data
Energy Balanced and Filled (EBAF)
The EBAF product provides monthly mean top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative fluxes constrained such that the 5-year average global net TOA flux is consistent with our best estimate of heat storage in the Earth-atmosphere system (~0.9 Wm-2). CERES EBAF is primarily intended for studies that use Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) data for climate model evaluation, estimating the Earth’s annual global mean energy budget, and in studies that infer meridional heat transports. The CERES EBAF dataset is a single file in netCDF format. It consists of monthly 1° regional, zonal, and global averages of TOA longwave (LW), shortwave (SW), and net (NET) fluxes under clear and all-sky conditions. It is derived from the Terra SRBAVG-GEO Edition2D_rev1 and SSF Edition2B_rev1 data products.
File Temporal Coverage: Monthly, climatology
File Spatial Coverage: Globally averaged, Gridded regional, Zonally averaged
Product Type: Clouds and TOA/SFC Flux
Product Level: 4
File Frequency: 1/dataset
Nominal Size/File: 208 MB
Applicable Studies: Comparison of fluxes with net balanced CGM fluxes
Documents: EBAF Description/Abstract
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