Earth Radiation Budget Satellite Radiant Flux and Albedo Measurements

NASA's Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) collected satellite measurements of shortwave and long-wave radiant fluxes at the top-of-the-atmosphere. Data collection is complete, with final updates processed by the LARC_ASDC organization in February 1990. The dataset includes daily, monthly hourly, and monthly averages derived from instruments on the ERBS, NOAA-9, and NOAA-10 satellites.

Use Cases

• Modeling Earth's radiation budget using shortwave and long-wave radiant flux averages.
• Analyzing temporal patterns in top-of-the-atmosphere albedo from daily and monthly hourly data.
• Comparing energy flux measurements from different satellite platforms (ERBS, NOAA-9, NOAA-10).
• Validating climate models with historical radiant flux data derived via the shape factor technique.

Strengths

• Data collection is complete, providing a finalized historical record.
• Measurements from three satellite platforms (ERBS, NOAA-9, NOAA-10) offer multi-source validation.
• Includes data at multiple temporal resolutions: daily, monthly hourly, and monthly averages.

Limitations

• Data is temporally stale, with the last update in February 1990.
• Specific row counts, file sizes, and geographic coverage details are unknown.
• The native (NAT) format and complex record structure (30-byte header, scale factors) may require specialized parsing.

Provenance

Source

NASA Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE), instruments on ERBS, NOAA-9, and NOAA-10 satellites.

Collection Method

Satellite-based measurements from non-scanner instrument packages using active cavity radiometers, processed with the shape factor technique.

Time Range

Coverage spans the operational period of the ERBS, NOAA-9, and NOAA-10 satellites during the ERBE mission (exact years unknown).

Freshness

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Geography

Global coverage from satellite observations.