TIROS Project: Early Satellite Radiometer Data from 1960-1961

November 1960 to January 1961 data from the TIROS-2 Medium-Resolution Scanning Radiometer, the first radiometer to make meteorological measurements from space. The dataset contains radiances in five infrared/visible wavelength regions, with data recovered from original IBM 7094 magnetic tapes. A related TIROS-3 Low-Resolution Omnidirectional Radiometer dataset from July 1961 measures temperature to calculate Earth's radiation budget.

Use Cases

• Study the evolution of atmospheric remote sensing based on the five-channel radiometer design described.
• Analyze early measurements of Earth's radiation budget based on the omnidirectional bolometer experiment.
• Research historical sensor performance and degradation based on the documented channel failures.
• Trace the development of satellite data formats based on the original IBM 36-bit word proprietary format.

Strengths

• Data from a historically significant mission, being the first radiometer to make meteorological measurements from space.
• Contains measurements from five specific wavelength channels with documented purposes (e.g., water vapor absorption, atmospheric window).
• Original data provenance is traceable to specific IBM 7094 machines and magnetic tapes.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data quality is noted as questionable for some channels, with low signal-to-noise ratio and channel deterioration.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Principal Investigator Joseph D. Barksdale.

Collection Method

Data recovered from original Final Meteorological Radiation Tapes (FMRT) and Omnidirectional Radiometer Temperature (ORT) tapes.

Time Range

TIROS-2: November 1960 to approximately January 1961. TIROS-3: from July 12, 1961.

Freshness

Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

Global coverage from satellite orbits.