SatCORPS CERES GEO: Hourly Cloud and Radiation Properties from Meteosat-9

Hourly cloud microphysical and radiation properties derived from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) on the Meteosat-9 geostationary satellite. The data set is arranged as files for each hour in netCDF-4 format at 4 km resolution (sub-sampled to 8 km) over the Northern Hemisphere. This product is part of the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) project, a key component of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS).

Use Cases

• Modeling the Earth's diurnal radiation budget based on hourly cloud property estimates.
• Analyzing cloud microphysical property trends over the Northern Hemisphere based on geostationary satellite data.
• Validating climate models using derived cloud and radiation flux data from the CERES project.
• Studying spatial and temporal patterns of atmospheric energy fluxes based on merged hourly global cloud properties.

Strengths

• Data is derived from a well-documented NASA CERES project algorithm (Langley Research Center SatCORPS).
• Provides hourly temporal resolution to account for the changing diurnal cycle.
• Offers high spatial resolution of 4 km at nadir.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Derived from SEVIRI instrument data on the Meteosat-9 platform using Langley Research Center SatCORPS algorithms.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 21:40:49.947131; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northern Hemisphere