NASA MULTI-TASTE Project: MERIS Level-1 Full-Resolution Top-of-Atmosphere Radiance

MERIS, a 15-band programmable imaging spectroradiometer on the Envisat-1 satellite, collected global top-of-atmosphere radiance data from 2002 to 2012. The 4th reprocessing cycle in 2020 produced this Level-1 full-resolution product containing 22 data files per observation. The European Space Agency operated the instrument, which provided global coverage every 3 days at a 300-meter resolution.

Use Cases

• Calibrating atmospheric correction models based on top-of-atmosphere radiance measurements.
• Analyzing historical land or ocean surface reflectance trends based on the 15 programmable spectral bands.
• Developing time-series algorithms for environmental change detection based on the 3-day global revisit cycle.
• Studying sensor performance and band-pass characteristics using the provided in-band reference irradiance calculations.

Strengths

• Data is from a well-documented, programmable sensor with 15 spectral bands adjustable in width and location.
• The 4th reprocessing cycle in 2020 indicates a modern, consistent processing standard.
• Provides global coverage with a 3-day revisit cycle at 300-meter spatial resolution.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data collection ended in 2012, limiting analysis to historical periods.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale ML projects.

Provenance

Source

European Space Agency (ESA) via NASA

Collection Method

Collected by the MERIS instrument on the Envisat-1 satellite.

Time Range

2002 to 2012

Freshness

Data collection ended in 2012; the latest reprocessing was in 2020.

Geography

Global