ERBE_S4G_WFOV_NF_N10_1: Earth Radiation Budget Regional Averages

Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) data provides multi-satellite measurements of shortwave, longwave, and total radiant flux from three distinct spacecraft. The S-4G product contains regional, zonal, and global averages of radiant flux and albedo, nested at 5-degree and 10-degree resolutions. This dataset specifically uses non-scanner, wide field-of-view instruments processed with a numerical filter.

Use Cases

• Modeling Earth's energy budget based on multi-satellite radiant flux measurements.
• Analyzing regional and global albedo trends from nested 5- and 10-degree averages.
• Validating climate model outputs against historical satellite radiation observations.
• Studying latitudinal variations in atmospheric radiation using zonal-scale data.

Strengths

• Data collection is explicitly stated as complete across all sources.
• Derived from a multi-platform satellite system (ERBS, NOAA-9, NOAA-10) providing complementary global and mid-latitude coverage.
• Instruments used precise thermistor detectors with space-view calibration to guard against drift.

Limitations

• Critical metadata conflicts exist: one platform lists a last update in 2026, while another indicates data collection ended in 1990.
• Column names and dataset size (rows, file size) are not provided by any source.
• The data format (HDF) and specialized processing (Numerical Filter) may require domain-specific tools for analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Satellite measurements from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) instruments on ERBS, NOAA-9, and NOAA-10.

Freshness

Conflicting: One source indicates last updated 2026-04-10, another indicates 1990-02-28.

Geography

Global coverage from NOAA satellites; ERBS coverage between 67.5°N and 67.5°S.