CERES Aqua FM3 Bidirectional Scans: Top-of-Atmosphere Radiances

CERES Bidirectional Scans Aqua FM3 Edition4 provides geolocated and calibrated Top-of-Atmosphere filtered radiances from the CERES-FM3 instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. The data product includes twenty-four hours of Level-1B data per day, containing samples from normal and short Earth scan elevation profiles in various azimuth modes. This ongoing collection is part of NASA's Earth Observing System program, continuing the legacy of the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment.

Use Cases

• Model Earth's radiation budget based on calibrated Top-of-Atmosphere radiances
• Analyze atmospheric energy flows based on broadband channel radiometric measurements
• Validate satellite instrument calibration based on internal and solar calibration view data
• Study cloud radiative effects based on geolocated radiance data across scan profiles

Strengths

• Data collection is ongoing, providing continuous temporal coverage
• Includes calibrated radiances from three broadband channels, a key component of the Earth Observing System
• Contains Level-0 raw data and converted science data, offering a multi-level view

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected using the CERES-FM3 instrument on the Aqua satellite platform.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 04:07:57.286476; freshness should be verified

Geography

Global coverage from satellite observations.