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Full catalog/CER_GEO_Ed4_HIM08_SH
CER_GEO_Ed4_HIM08_SH·vV01.2·dataset

Cloud and energy maps over the south (Himawari-8)

SatCORPS CERES GEO Edition 4 Himawari-8 Southern Hemisphere Version 1.2
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 2 netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Hourly maps of cloud and energy properties over the Southern Hemisphere, including details about clouds and the radiation, or energy, coming from Earth and its atmosphere.

How it's made. Derived hourly from imagery taken by the Advanced Himawari Imager on Japan's Himawari-8 geostationary satellite, processed with NASA Langley's cloud-retrieval algorithms and saved as netCDF files at roughly 6 km spacing.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for tracking clouds and Earth's energy budget through the day, supporting weather and climate research that depends on frequent, repeated views of the same region.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD MICROPHYSICS › CLOUD OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESSATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD RADIATIVE TRANSFER › CLOUD EMISSIVITYATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD BASE HEIGHTATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD MIDLAYER TEMPERATUREATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD HEIGHTATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD BASE PRESSUREATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD TOP PRESSUREATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD FRACTIONATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD MICROPHYSICS › CLOUD LIQUID WATER/ICEATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD TOP HEIGHTATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD TOP TEMPERATUREATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD BASE TEMPERATURE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2015-07-05 → 2022-12-01
  • Measured byHimawari-8 (AHI)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

CER_GEO_Ed4_HIM08_SH_V01.2 is the Satellite Cloud and Radiation Property retrieval System (SatCORPS) Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) Geostationary Satellite (GEO) Edition 4 Himawari-8 over the Southern Hemisphere (SH) Version 1.2 data product. Data was collected using the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) Instrument on the Himawari-8 platform. Note: Version 1.2 is identical to version 1.0. No changes have been made to the retrieval algorithm. This data set comprises cloud micro-physical and radiation properties derived hourly from Himawari-8 geostationary satellite imager data using the Langley Research Center (LaRC) SATCORPS algorithms supporting the CERES project. The data set is arranged as files for each hour in netCDF-4 format. The observations are at 2 km resolution (at nadir) and are sub-sampled to 6 km (taking every third line and pixel).

Get the data

cer_geo_ed4_him08_sh_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="CER_GEO_Ed4_HIM08_SH",
    version="V01.2",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LARC_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.