CERES CRS Terra FM1 MODIS: Cloud and Radiative Flux Swath Data

Data collection for this product is complete. The Clouds and Radiative Swath (CRS) product contains one hour of instantaneous CERES data for a single scanner instrument, including vertical flux profiles at four atmospheric levels. It was collected by the CERES-FM1 instrument on the Terra satellite, launched December 18, 1999, and is a key component of NASA's Earth Observing System.

Use Cases

• Modeling radiative transfer in the atmosphere based on adjusted fluxes for clear-sky and total-sky conditions
• Analyzing cloud microphysics and atmospheric temperature based on cloud parameters mentioned in the description
• Studying Earth's radiation budget based on broadband radiometric measurements from three channels
• Validating atmospheric models based on vertical flux profiles at the surface, 500-, 70-, and 1-hPa levels

Strengths

• Product is part of a long-term NASA Earth Observing System program with instruments launched from 1997 to 2017
• Fluxes and cloud parameters are adjusted for consistency with a radiative transfer model
• Contains all data from the CERES Single Scanner Footprint (SSF) product

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download
• 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-FM1 instrument on the Terra satellite platform

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 04:02:41.919715; freshness should be verified