NASA ACRIM III Project: Daily Solar Irradiance from the ACRIMSAT Satellite

NASA's ACRIMSAT satellite collected total solar irradiance data for 14 years using the Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor (ACRIM) III instrument. The dataset includes Level 2 data products providing daily mean and shutter cycle measurements of solar radiation. This data is hosted on AWS Open Data and is licensed under CC-BY-4.0.

Use Cases

• Modeling solar forcing on Earth's climate based on long-term irradiance monitoring.
• Analyzing trends in total solar irradiance over a 14-year period.
• Studying the relationship between solar radiation and atmospheric processes.
• Validating and calibrating climate models using direct satellite observations.

Strengths

• Data collection spans a 14-year mission, providing a long-term record.
• Includes two processed data products: daily means and shutter cycles.
• Data is sourced from a dedicated NASA satellite instrument (ACRIM III).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

NASA

Collection Method

Satellite observations from the ACRIM III instrument on the ACRIMSAT spacecraft.

Time Range

14-year mission duration (specific dates not provided).

Freshness

null

Geography

Global (solar irradiance measurements from space).