PMRN6L1RAD: Nimbus-6 Upper Atmosphere Radiance Grids

From 16 June 1975 to 24 June 1978, this dataset provides daily gridded radiance measurements from the Nimbus-6 satellite's Pressure Modulated Radiometer (PMR). It captures infrared radiance at CO2 lines in the 15-micron band to derive temperature profiles for the stratosphere and mesosphere. The data is stored in a 4° latitude by 10° longitude grid format and includes copies of the original instrument tapes.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical temperature trends in the upper stratosphere and mesosphere based on infrared radiance measurements.
• Validating modern climate models against a multi-year observational record from the 1970s.
• Studying the spatial and temporal variability of atmospheric temperature using the daily 4°x10° gridded data product.
• Researching satellite instrument calibration and retrieval techniques for pressure-modulated radiometers.

Strengths

• Provides a continuous multi-year record from June 1975 to June 1978 for longitudinal climate studies.
• Offers derived data in a regular daily grid (4°x10°) alongside the original raw tape data for provenance.
• Dataset is hosted on multiple authoritative platforms (NASA EarthData, Data.gov), indicating established importance and curation.

Limitations

• Column names and specific data structure are not documented in the provided metadata.
• Metadata sources conflict on the 'last updated' date (1978 vs. 2026) and license status (specified vs. none).
• Data is stored in a legacy ASCII hexadecimal format with specific byte-ordering (DEC convention), requiring specialized parsing.

Provenance

Source

Oxford University's Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics (AOPP) group, with Principal Investigator Dr. John T. Houghton.

Collection Method

Measured by the Pressure Modulated Radiometer (PMR) instrument on the Nimbus-6 satellite.

Time Range

16 June 1975 to 24 June 1978

Freshness

2026-04-10 19:37:13.380265

Geography

Global, gridded to 4-degree latitude by 10-degree longitude cells.