CERES ERBE-like: Monthly Top-of-Atmosphere Radiation Averages from NOAA-20 FM6

CERES ERBE-like Monthly Geographical Averages NOAA-20 FM6 Edition1 is a data product from the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument. It provides a month of space and time averaged data for shortwave and long-wave fluxes at the Top-of-the-Atmosphere (TOA), nested from 2.5-degree to 10-degree regional, zonal, and global averages. The data is produced by NASA and was last updated on March 13, 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling Earth's energy budget based on top-of-atmosphere shortwave and long-wave flux averages.
• Analyzing regional climate patterns based on 2.5-degree, 5-degree, and 10-degree gridded albedo and net flux data.
• Studying diurnal cycles using hourly average data derived from scene identification and diurnal models.
• Comparing satellite-era radiation data with historical ERBE mission results using identical algorithms.

Strengths

• Data is derived from the CERES FM6 instrument launched on the JPSS-1 satellite in 2017, providing modern measurements.
• Averages are provided at multiple nested spatial scales: 2.5-degree, 5-degree, and 10-degree grids, zonally, and globally.
• Uses algorithms identical to the historical Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) for continuity.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Satellite radiometric measurements from the CERES FM6 instrument on the NOAA-20 (JPSS-1) satellite, processed with ERBE-like spatial and temporal averaging algorithms.

Time Range

Monthly coverage for the operational period of the NOAA-20 FM6 instrument.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 05:07:01.805971; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage, with data nested into 2.5-degree, 5-degree, and 10-degree geographical regions and zones.