SCRN5L1RAD_CDROM: Nimbus-5 Satellite Infrared Radiance Grids

Sixteen infrared channels from the Nimbus-5 Selective Chopper Radiometer provide daily gridded radiance measurements from 1972 to 1978. This Level 1 product contains both corrected and uncorrected radiances on a 4° latitude by 10° longitude grid with a 25 km ground resolution. The dataset, a follow-on to the Nimbus-4 experiment, is stored across 28 CD-ROMs in a legacy ASCII hexadecimal format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical atmospheric temperature profiles based on 16-channel infrared radiance measurements.
• Validating climate reanalysis models using gridded daily radiance data from 1972-1978.
• Studying the calibration and correction of early satellite instruments by comparing corrected and uncorrected radiance values.
• Researching long-term changes in Earth's energy budget using a consistent, multi-year satellite record.

Strengths

• Provides a continuous, multi-year temporal coverage from 13 December 1972 to 20 April 1978.
• Offers high spatial specificity with a 25 km ground resolution and a defined daily grid (4° lat x 10° lon).
• Contains both primary (original orbit) and derived (gridded) data formats, including corrected and uncorrected radiances.

Limitations

• Metadata conflict: last update dates are inconsistent, reported as 1978-04-20 on one platform and 2026-04-10 on others.
• Data is stored in a legacy ASCII hexadecimal format with DEC byte-ordering, requiring specialized knowledge for modern processing.
• Column names and exact row/size counts are not provided in the available metadata.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Measured by the Selective Chopper Radiometer (SCR) instrument aboard the Nimbus-5 satellite.

Time Range

13 December 1972 to 20 April 1978

Freshness

2026-04-10 19:44:03.917491

Geography

Global, gridded.