CERES Monthly Gridded Radiative Fluxes and Clouds from Terra Satellite

CERES Monthly Gridded Radiative Fluxes and Clouds Terra FM1 Edition2G is a satellite-derived Earth science dataset from NASA. It contains regional averages of radiative fluxes at the top-of-atmosphere, surface, and within the atmosphere, alongside cloud parameters, averaged monthly from the CERES-FM1 instrument on the Terra satellite. Data collection for this specific product is complete.

Use Cases

• Modeling Earth's radiation budget based on top-of-atmosphere, surface, and in-atmosphere flux averages.
• Analyzing cloud radiative forcing based on cloud parameters sorted into four height categories.
• Studying regional climate variability based on 1-degree spatial region and hourly observation averages.
• Validating climate models using observed fluxes and cloud properties from satellite overpass hours.

Strengths

• Data collection for this product is complete, indicating a finalized dataset.
• Fluxes and cloud properties are averaged over 1-degree spatial regions and hourly bins.
• Includes data for four atmospheric levels and four cloud height categories.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data only represents hours of satellite overpass, not continuous temporal coverage.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data collected using the CERES-FM1 and CERES Scanner instruments on the Terra satellite platform.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:55:57.412791; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage, gridded to 1-degree spatial regions.