CERES SYN1deg: Hourly Earth Radiation and Cloud Properties

CERES SYN1deg-1Hour Edition4A provides hourly, 1-degree gridded data on Earth's radiant energy. It combines observations from CERES instruments on Terra and NOAA-20 satellites with geostationary satellite data to model top-of-atmosphere, within-atmosphere, and surface radiative fluxes. The dataset includes computed fluxes from the Fu-Liou radiative transfer model and coincident cloud and aerosol properties derived from MODIS and GEO imagers.

Use Cases

• Modeling diurnal variability of Earth's radiative energy budget based on 1-hourly temporal resolution.
• Analyzing cloud property impacts on surface and atmospheric fluxes based on MODIS and GEO-derived cloud data.
• Studying aerosol effects on radiative forcing under pristine and all-sky conditions.
• Validating and calibrating climate models using CERES-observed TOA fluxes normalized with geostationary data.
• Investigating regional energy balance on a 1-degree spatial scale.

Strengths

• Integrates data from multiple satellite platforms including CERES on Terra and NOAA-20, and geostationary imagers.
• Provides parameters at a one-hourly temporal resolution and 1-degree regional spatial scale.
• Includes computed fluxes for all-sky, clear-sky, pristine, and all-sky without aerosol conditions.
• Fluxes are provided for longwave, shortwave, and window spectral regions.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data collection is ongoing, meaning temporal coverage is not a closed period.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data collected using CERES Imaging Radiometers on Geostationary Satellites; CERES FM1, FM2, Scanner, and MODIS on Terra; and FM6 and VIIRS on NOAA-20.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 05:30:14.554470; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage on a 1-degree equal-angle grid.