SCRN4L1RAD: Nimbus-4 Infrared Radiance Grid, 1970-1972

SCRN4L1RAD_CDROM is the gridded Level 1 radiance data product from the Nimbus-4 Selective Chopper Radiometer (SCR) experiment. It provides corrected radiance measurements from 16 infrared channels (2.3 to 15 micrometers) with a 25 km ground resolution, formatted in both daily 4°x10° grids and original orbit tracks. The data were produced by Oxford University's AOPP group under Principal Investigator Dr. John T. Houghton.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical atmospheric temperature and composition trends based on 16-channel infrared radiance measurements.
• Calibrating or validating modern satellite instruments using a consistent, gridded historical infrared dataset.
• Studying the spatial and temporal distribution of radiance in a 4°x10° daily latitude-longitude grid.
• Reconstructing orbital sensor data from the original orbit format records.

Strengths

• Provides a 27-month continuous time series from July 1970 to November 1972.
• Contains data from 16 specific spectral channels within the 2.3 to 15 micrometer infrared range.
• Offers data in two structured formats: a daily gridded product and the original orbital data.

Limitations

• Column names and a precise row count are not provided in the available metadata.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates exist between sources (1972 vs. 2026), suggesting potential metadata inconsistency.
• Data is stored in a legacy ASCII hexadecimal format with specific byte-ordering, which may require specialized parsing.

Provenance

Source

Oxford University's Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics (AOPP) group, with Dr. John T. Houghton as principal investigator.

Collection Method

Measurements from the Nimbus-4 satellite's Selective Chopper Radiometer (SCR) instrument.

Time Range

1970-07 27 to 1972-11-02

Freshness

2026-04-09 22:36:45.286859

Geography

Global, based on satellite orbits.