CERES ERBE-like Time-Interpolated Top-of-Atmosphere Fluxes from Aqua Satellite

CERES ES-4 data provides monthly, daily, and hourly averages of shortwave and longwave radiative fluxes at the top of the atmosphere, spatially aggregated from 2.5-degree to global scales. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration collected this product using the CERES-FM3 and FM4 instruments aboard the Aqua satellite, launched in 2002. This dataset is a follow-on to the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment mission and is a key component of the Earth Observing System program.

Use Cases

• Modeling Earth's radiative energy budget based on spatially nested shortwave and longwave flux averages.
• Analyzing diurnal cycles of atmospheric radiation based on hourly averages interpolated from daily data.
• Studying regional and global albedo trends based on nested geographical and zonal averages.
• Validating climate models using top-of-atmosphere net flux data aggregated to multiple spatial scales.

Strengths

• Data collection is described as complete for this product.
• Provides averages at three temporal resolutions (hourly, daily, monthly) and multiple spatial aggregations (2.5-, 5-, 10-degree, zonal, global).
• Derived from measurements by the CERES-FM3 and CERES-FM4 instruments on the well-documented Aqua platform.

Limitations

• 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

Collection Method

Collected using the CERES-FM3 and CERES-FM4 instruments on the Aqua satellite platform.

Time Range

Temporal coverage is not explicitly stated, but data collection for the product is described as complete.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03 13 05:06:12.955146; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage, with data nested from 2.5-degree regions to global monthly averages.