DSCOVR NISTAR: Earth's Full-Disk Radiation Budget from Lagrange-1

DSCOVR's NISTAR instrument provides minute-by-minute measurements of the total radiant energy from the sunlit face of Earth. The Level 1A dataset contains calibrated radiance values in four broad spectral bands, from ultraviolet to far-infrared, integrated over the entire Earth disk. These data are foundational for calculating Earth's energy balance and monitoring changes in the climate system.

Use Cases

• Calculating Earth's total outgoing radiant energy based on the 0.2–100 µm total radiation band.
• Monitoring global albedo variations using the 0.2–4 µm total solar reflected band.
• Tracking near-infrared reflectance for vegetation and cloud studies via the 0.7–4 µm band.
• Validating co-alignment and filter stability with the companion EPIC camera using the 0.2–1.1 µm photodiode band.

Strengths

• Provides a unique, continuous full-disk integrated measurement of Earth's radiance from the stable Lagrange-1 point.
• Offers high temporal resolution with minute-by-minute sampling of four distinct, physically meaningful spectral bands.
• Data is calibrated to engineering units, with detailed corrections for instrument artifacts like stray light.

Limitations

• Spatial resolution is a single pixel for the entire sunlit Earth, offering no regional detail.
• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific license terms are not provided in the sources.
• The dataset's temporal coverage and update frequency are not explicitly stated.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), instrument onboard NOAA's DSCOVR spacecraft.

Collection Method

Data collected by the NISTAR radiometer, a 4-band instrument using three electrical substitution radiometers and a photodiode.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-04-10 according to datagov platform metadata.

Geography

Global coverage of the entire sunlit face of Earth, from the Earth-Sun Lagrange-1 point.