NOAA Polar Satellite Visible and Infrared Imagery from 1966 to 1978

Daily visible-band and infrared-band imagery from ESSA, ITOS 1, and NOAA polar-orbiting satellites covers December 1966 through March 1978. This dataset was created by scanning original 35 mm film, glossy prints, and paper halftone prints from the NOAA NCEI physical archives. The scanned analog imagery was processed and converted into NetCDF format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term cloud cover trends and patterns using daily visible-band imagery.
• Studying historical thermal emissions and atmospheric temperature profiles via infrared-band data starting in 1972.
• Calibrating modern satellite sensor data against early operational satellite records.
• Digitizing and preserving analog satellite imagery archives for computational analysis.

Strengths

• Provides over 11 years of daily visible-band satellite imagery from December 1966 to March 1978.
• Infrared-band data adds a second spectral dimension starting in December 1972.
• Data originates from scanned original archival materials (35mm film, prints) held by NOAA NCEI.

Limitations

• Exact row count, file size, and specific column names are not provided by any source.
• Conflicting last updated dates: one source lists 2026-03-12 (likely a metadata update), another lists 1978-03-15 (likely the data end date).

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) physical archives.

Collection Method

Analog imagery on 35 mm film, glossy prints, or paper halftone prints was scanned, processed, and converted to NetCDF.

Time Range

December 1966 to March 1978 (IR data begins December 1972).

Freshness

2026-03-12 19:51:01.750215

Geography

Global coverage from polar-orbiting satellites.