CERES Bidirectional Scans: NOAA-20 Satellite Instrument Validation Data

CERES FM6 instrument data from the NOAA-20 satellite, launched on November 18, 2017, provides geolocated and calibrated Top-of-Atmosphere filtered radiances. This Edition1-CV product contains twenty-four hours of Level-1b data per scanner, including samples from Earth scans and calibration views in various modes. The data is produced by NASA's CERES program, a key component of the Earth Observing System, but is explicitly intended for instrument validation and not for scientific publications.

Use Cases

• Validate instrument calibration algorithms based on the included space, internal, and solar calibration views.
• Analyze scanner performance across different operational modes, such as fixed and rotating azimuth scans.
• Assess the conversion of raw Level-0 science and instrument data to geolocated, converted data.
• Monitor the stability of broadband channel radiometric measurements over time.

Strengths

• Data collection is explicitly noted as ongoing, suggesting continuous updates.
• Contains converted satellite position, velocity, and celestial data not present in the raw Level-0 input.
• Part of a long-term NASA program with instruments launched on multiple satellites since 1997, indicating a mature data lineage.

Limitations

• The description explicitly states Edition 1-CV data are 'not suited for science publications' and are for instrument validation only.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Collected by the CERES FM6 instrument aboard the NOAA-20 (JPSS-1) satellite.

Time Range

Data collection is ongoing; specific temporal coverage is not stated.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 05:10:48.687736; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage from a polar-orbiting satellite.