THIRN4L1CH67: Nimbus-4 Satellite 6.7-Micron Water Vapor Radiances

Nimbus-4's Temperature-Humidity Infrared Radiometer (THIR) captured this 6.7-micron channel data, which is sensitive to upper atmospheric moisture and jet streams. Recovered from original IBM 360 magnetic tapes, the dataset provides Level 1 radiances expressed as brightness temperatures from April 14, 1970, to March 25, 1971. Its companion 11.5-micron channel product, THIRN4L1CH115, offers higher-resolution surface and cloud-top temperature measurements.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical water vapor distribution in the upper troposphere and stratosphere based on 6.7-micron radiances.
• Tracking the location and movement of jet streams and frontal systems using the water vapor channel data.
• Comparing atmospheric moisture content with modern satellite observations for climate trend studies.
• Recovering and processing historical meteorological data archived in proprietary IBM 36-bit binary TAP format.

Strengths

• Provides a specific, nearly one-year time series from April 14, 1970, to March 25, 1971.
• Represents recovered primary data from a pioneering satellite instrument, the Nimbus-4 THIR.
• Cross-platform availability on datagov and nasa_earthdata signals its archival importance.

Limitations

• Column names and dataset size (rows, file size) are unknown across all sources, limiting immediate analysis.
• Data is archived in a legacy proprietary IBM 36-bit binary format (TAP file), requiring specialized tools for access.
• Conflicting 'last updated' metadata: one source lists 1971-03-25, another lists 2026-04-09.

Provenance

Source

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Principal Investigator Andrew W. McCulloch.

Collection Method

Data originally written on IBM 360 machines and recovered from magnetic tapes (Nimbus Meteorological Radiation Tapes).

Time Range

April 14, 1970, to March 25, 1971.

Freshness

1971-03-25 23:59:59.999000

Geography

Global coverage from the Nimbus-4 satellite orbit.