BOREAS GOES-8: 1996 Surface and Atmospheric Radiation Images

GOES-8 satellite imagery provides shortwave and longwave radiation data at the surface and top of the atmosphere for the BOREAS study region. These Level-2 data cover an eight-month period from February to October 1996, though some images are missing from the temporal series. The dataset differs from earlier 1994 collections in its spatial coverage and grid cell size.

Use Cases

• Modeling surface energy balance based on derived shortwave and longwave radiation fluxes.
• Analyzing temporal trends in atmospheric radiation over the boreal forest during 1996.
• Comparing albedo and skin temperature estimates with other BOREAS campaign measurements.
• Studying water vapor indicators and photosynthetically active radiation for vegetation-climate interactions.

Strengths

• Covers a specific eight-month period from 12-Feb-1996 to 22-Oct-1996.
• Provides derived physical parameters (shortwave/longwave radiation) at multiple atmospheric levels.
• Originates from a major scientific organization (NASA) as part of the BOREAS campaign.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low: column names, row counts, and exact spatial coverage are unknown.
• There are images missing from the temporal series, creating gaps in the data record.
• Conflicting license information exists between platforms ('other-license-specified' vs 'None').

Provenance

Source

BOREAS RSS-14 team, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected and processed from GOES-8 satellite Level-1 image data.

Time Range

1996-02-12 to 1996-10-22

Freshness

2026-03-13 (metadata update on datagov platform)

Geography

BOREAS study region