SatCORPS CERES GEO: Hourly Cloud and Radiation Properties from GOES-15

CER_GEO_Ed4_GOE15_SH_V01.2 is a data product comprising cloud micro-physical and radiation properties derived hourly from GOES-15 geostationary satellite imager data. The data set is arranged as hourly files in netCDF-4 format, with observations at 4 km resolution sub-sampled to 8 km, and was created by the Langley Research Center (LARC) SatCORPS algorithms supporting the CERES project. CERES is a key Earth Observing System (EOS) program component, with the first instrument launched in 1997 and the most recent in 2017.

Use Cases

• Modeling the Earth's diurnal radiation cycle based on hourly cloud property estimates.
• Analyzing cloud microphysical properties over the Southern Hemisphere based on geostationary satellite data.
• Estimating radiative fluxes between CERES instrument measurements based on merged global cloud properties.
• Studying long-term cloud and radiation trends based on data from the CERES project lineage.

Strengths

• Data collection is complete, providing a stable record for analysis.
• Provides hourly temporal resolution for analyzing diurnal cycles.
• Offers high spatial resolution of 4 km at nadir, sub-sampled to 8 km.
• Derived using established algorithms from NASA's Langley Research Center supporting the long-running CERES project.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Spatial coverage is limited to the Southern Hemisphere view of the GOES-15 satellite.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Derived from GOES-15 Imager data using Langley Research Center (LARC) SatCORPS algorithms.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 22:10:09.103876; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Southern Hemisphere coverage from the GOES-15 geostationary satellite.