SatCORPS CERES GEO Edition 4: Hourly Cloud and Radiation Properties from MTSAT-2R

CERES instruments, launched on missions from 1997 to 2017, provide radiometric measurements of Earth's atmosphere. This dataset comprises hourly cloud micro-physical and radiation properties derived from MTSAT-2 geostationary satellite imager data at 4 km resolution, processed by NASA Langley Research Center algorithms. Data collection for this product is complete, and files are arranged hourly in netCDF-4 format.

Use Cases

• Modeling the Earth's diurnal radiation cycle based on hourly global cloud property estimates.
• Analyzing cloud micro-physical properties based on geostationary satellite imager data.
• Estimating radiative fluxes between CERES instrument measurements based on merged hourly property data.
• Studying cloud radiative transfer and atmospheric energy balance based on broadband channel radiometry.

Strengths

• Data is derived from a long-term CERES program with instruments launched on multiple missions from 1997 to 2017.
• Observations are at a high spatial resolution of 4 km at nadir.
• Provides hourly temporal coverage to account for the changing diurnal cycle.
• Data collection for this specific product is stated as complete.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Derived from MTSAT-2 geostationary satellite imager data using Langley Research Center SatCORPS algorithms.

Time Range

Temporal coverage is not explicitly stated, but data is collected hourly.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 22:02:21.728299; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northern Hemisphere.