SatCORPS CERES GEO: Hourly Cloud and Radiation Properties from GOES-14

CER_GEO_Ed4_GOE14_NH_V01 is a data product from NASA's Langley Research Center providing hourly cloud micro-physical and radiation properties derived from GOES-14 geostationary satellite imager data. The dataset supports the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) project, with observations at 4 km resolution sub-sampled to 8 km, arranged in hourly netCDF-4 files. Data collection for this specific product is complete.

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 geostationary satellite retrievals.
• Estimating radiative fluxes between CERES instrument measurements using merged global cloud properties.
• Studying cloud property evolution at high temporal resolution based on hourly data files.

Strengths

• Data is derived from the GOES-14 geostationary satellite, a key platform for Earth observation.
• Observations are provided at a high spatial resolution of 4 km at nadir.
• The dataset is structured in the self-describing netCDF-4 format, which is common in scientific communities.
• Data collection is complete, providing a stable archive for analysis.

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, Langley Research Center (LaRC) SatCORPS algorithms.

Collection Method

Derived from GOES-14 geostationary satellite imager data using proprietary retrieval algorithms.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 21:42:34.353655; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northern Hemisphere.