SatCORPS CERES GEO: Hourly Cloud and Radiation Properties from GOES-16

CER_GEO_Ed4_GOE16_NH_V01.4 is a NASA Langley Research Center data product providing cloud micro-physical and radiation properties derived from GOES-16 geostationary satellite imager data. The dataset comprises hourly observations at 2 km resolution, subsampled to 6 km, and is stored in netCDF-4 format. Version 1.4 uses the GMAO MERRA-2 reanalysis for atmospheric input, with no changes to the core cloud retrieval algorithm.

Use Cases

• Modeling Earth's radiation budget based on derived cloud and radiation properties.
• Analyzing cloud micro-physical property trends using hourly geostationary satellite data.
• Validating atmospheric models with cloud retrievals informed by MERRA-2 reanalysis data.
• Studying diurnal cycles of cloud properties over the Northern Hemisphere.

Strengths

• Data is derived from the Advanced Baseline Imager on the GOES-16 platform.
• Observations are provided at a high spatial resolution of 2 km at nadir.
• Hourly temporal resolution supports analysis of diurnal cycles.
• The dataset uses the GMAO MERRA-2 reanalysis for atmospheric consistency.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data 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-16 ABI imager data using the SatCORPS cloud retrieval algorithms.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 22:10:03.305642; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northern Hemisphere.