SatCORPS CERES GEO Edition 4 MTSAT-2R Northern Hemisphere Version 1.2

Northern Hemisphere cloud microphysical and radiation properties derived hourly from MTSAT-2 geostationary satellite data. The dataset is produced by NASA's Langley Research Center using SatCORPS algorithms for the CERES project, with observations at 4 km resolution (sub-sampled to 8 km) and files arranged hourly in netCDF-4 format. CERES instruments, launched on missions from TRMM in 1997 to NOAA-20 in 2017, provide radiometric measurements to study the Earth's radiation budget.

Use Cases

• Modeling the diurnal cycle of cloud radiative forcing based on hourly global cloud property estimates.
• Analyzing cloud microphysical properties like optical thickness and particle size based on satellite-derived retrievals.
• Estimating top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes between CERES instrument measurements based on merged geostationary data.
• Studying spatial and temporal patterns of cloud properties over the Northern Hemisphere based on 4 km resolution imagery.

Strengths

• Data is derived from a specific geostationary satellite instrument (MTSAT-2 VISSR) and a defined algorithm suite (LaRC SatCORPS).
• Provides hourly temporal resolution to account for the diurnal cycle.
• Offers a spatial resolution of 4 km at nadir, sub-sampled to 8 km.

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.
• The description notes version 1.2 is identical to version 1.0 with no algorithm changes, suggesting potential staleness in methodology.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

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

Time Range

Hourly observations; specific date range not provided.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 22:08:54.410910; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northern Hemisphere.