GEWEX SRB Land-Only Longwave Radiation Fluxes

Land-only global fields contain 26 longwave surface, Top of Atmosphere, and atmospheric profile radiative parameters. The dataset is derived using the GEWEX Surface Radiation Project's Longwave algorithm, integrating inputs from ISCCP cloud data, ISCCP meteorology, Landflux, and MERRA-2. It is produced by NASA's LARC ASDC and covers a temporal range from July 1983 through December 1987.

Use Cases

• Analyzing outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) trends over land using the TOA upward flux columns.
• Studying atmospheric heating profiles by comparing upward and downward fluxes at the tropopause, 200hPa, and 500hPa levels.
• Investigating cloud radiative effects by utilizing the all-sky, clear-sky, and pristine-sky flux columns.
• Assessing surface energy balance components with the surface-level upward and downward longwave flux parameters.
• Validating climate model output against observed longwave radiative fluxes using the status flag for filled cloud properties.

Strengths

• Provides a focused land-only subset of 26 distinct longwave radiative parameters, enabling detailed surface energy budget analysis.
• Integrates multiple authoritative data sources including ISCCP, Landflux, and MERRA-2 for algorithm inputs.
• Covers a specific historical period (July 1983 - December 1987) useful for baseline climate studies.

Limitations

• Conflicting temporal coverage exists across platform entries; one source lists 1983-1987, while another related product lists 2010-2017, creating ambiguity for the exact dataset scope.
• Specific row counts, file sizes, and a complete list of column names are unavailable from all sources.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without further details.

Provenance

Source

NASA World Climate Research Programme/Global Energy and Water-Cycle Experiment (WCRP/GEWEX) Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) Project, processed by LARC_ASDC.

Collection Method

Derived using the GEWEX SRB Longwave algorithm, with inputs from ISCCP HXS (clouds), ISCCP nnHIRS (meteorology), Landflux surface data, and MERRA-2 conditionally.

Time Range

July 1983 through December 1987

Freshness

2026-03-13 02:35:33.647684

Geography

Global, land-only