SatCORPS CERES GEO: GOES-12 Cloud and Radiation Properties for the Northern Hemisphere

Northern Hemisphere cloud micro-physical and radiation properties derived hourly from GOES-12 geostationary satellite imager data. The dataset, produced by NASA's Langley Research Center using SatCORPS algorithms, supports the CERES project and is arranged as hourly files in netCDF-4 format at 4 km resolution. CERES instruments, first launched in 1997, are a key component of NASA's Earth Observing System.

Use Cases

• Modeling the Earth's diurnal radiation cycle based on hourly cloud property estimates.
• Analyzing cloud micro-physical properties over the Northern Hemisphere based on 4 km resolution satellite imagery.
• Estimating radiative fluxes between CERES instrument measurements based on merged geostationary satellite data.
• Studying long-term cloud property trends for climate research based on data from the CERES program satellites.

Strengths

• Data is derived from a specific, well-documented satellite platform (GOES-12).
• Observations are at a high spatial resolution of 4 km at nadir.
• The dataset is part of the long-running CERES program, with instruments launched from 1997 to 2017.
• Data collection for this product is stated as complete.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The spatial coverage is limited to the Northern Hemisphere.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Langley Research Center (LaRC)

Collection Method

Derived using SatCORPS algorithms from GOES-12 Imager data on the GOES-12 Platform.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 21:42:42.645035; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northern Hemisphere