Daily energy, cloud and haze balance (Terra+Aqua+NOAA-20)
What it measures. Tracks the daily balance of energy entering and leaving Earth, plus the clouds and haze affecting it — measured at the top of the atmosphere, within the atmosphere, and at the surface on a 1-degree grid.
How it's made. Combines CERES energy-budget instruments and MODIS/VIIRS cloud sensors on the Terra, Aqua and NOAA-20 satellites with geostationary imagery, blended and run through a radiation model.
How & where you'd use it. A core dataset for climate science, showing how sunlight and heat flow through the Earth system and how clouds and tiny airborne particles tip that balance.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2000-03-01 → ongoing
- Measured byGEOSTATIONARY SATELLITES (IMAGING RADIOMETERS) · Terra (CERES-FM1, CERES-FM2, CERES SCANNER, MODIS) · NOAA-20 (CERES-FM6, CERES SCANNER, VIIRS) · Aqua (CERES-FM3, CERES-FM4, MODIS)
- Processing levelLevel 3
- FormatsHDF4
- StatusACTIVE
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_SYN1deg-Day_Terra-Aqua-NOAA20_Edition4B is the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) and geostationary (GEO)-Enhanced Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA), Within-Atmosphere and Surface Fluxes, Clouds and Aerosols Daily Terra-Aqua-NOAA20 Edition4A data product. Data was collected using the following instruments and platforms: Imaging Radiometers on Geostationary Satellites platform, CERES Flight Model 1 (FM1), CERES FM2, CERES Scanner, and MODIS on Terra; CERES FM3, CERES FM4, CERES Scanner, and MODIS on Aqua; and CERES FM6 and VIIRS on NOAA-20. Data collection for this product is ongoing. Not all platforms are available for any particular data month. Data collection for this product is ongoing. The CERES Synoptic Radiative Fluxes and Clouds (SYN) 1degree products provide CERES-observed temporally interpolated TOA radiative fluxes and coincident imager-derived cloud and aerosol properties and include geostationary-derived cloud properties and broadband fluxes that have been carefully normalized with CERES fluxes in order to maintain the CERES calibration. They also contain computed initial TOA, in-atmosphere, and surface fluxes and computed fluxes that have been adjusted or constrained to the CERES-observed TOA fluxes. The computed fluxes are produced using the Langley Fu-Liou radiative transfer model. Computations use MODIS and geostationary satellite cloud properties along with atmospheric profiles provided by the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO). The adjustments to clouds and atmospheric properties are also provided. The computations are made for all-sky, clear-sky, pristine (clear-sky without aerosols), and all-sky without aerosol conditions. This product provides parameters on a daily temporal resolution and 1°-regional spatial scales. Fluxes are provided for clear-sky and all-sky conditions in the longwave (LW), shortwave (SW), and window (WN) regions. The CERES SYN1deg products use 1-hourly radiances and cloud property data from GEO imagers to more accurately model variability between CERES observations. To use GEO data to enhance diurnal sampling, several steps are involved. First, GEO radiances are cross-calibrated with the MODIS imager using only data that is coincident in time and ray-matched in angle. Next, the GEO cloud retrievals are inferred from the calibrated GEO radiances. The GEO radiances are converted from narrowband to broadband using empirical regressions and then to broadband GEO TOA fluxes using Angular Distribution Models (ADMs) and directional models. To ensure GEO and CERES TOA fluxes are consistent, a normalization technique is used. Instantaneous matched gridded fluxes from CERES and GEO are regressed against one another over a month from 5°x5 ° latitude-longitude regions. The regression relation is then applied to all GEO fluxes to remove biases that depend upon cloud amount, solar and view zenith angles, and regional dependencies. The regional means are determined for 1° equal-angle grid boxes calculated by first interpolating each parameter for any missing times of the CERES/GEO observations to produce a complete 1-hourly time series for the month. Daily means are calculated using the combination of observed and interpolated parameters from all days containing at least one CERES observation. CERES is a key component of the Earth Observing System (EOS) program. The CERES instruments provide radiometric measurements of the Earth's atmosphere from three broadband channels. The CERES missions are a follow-on to the successful Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) mission. The first CERES instrument, protoflight model (PFM), was launched on November 27, 1997 as part of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). Two CERES instruments (FM1 and FM2) were launched into polar orbit on board the Earth Observing System (EOS) flagship Terra on December 18, 1999. Two additional CERES instruments (FM3 and FM4) were launched on board Earth Observing System (EOS) Aqua on May 4, 2002. The CERES FM5 instrument was launched on board the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite on October 28, 2011. The newest CERES instrument (FM6) was launched on board the Joint Polar-Orbiting Satellite System 1 (JPSS-1) satellite, now called NOAA-20, on November 18, 2017.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="CER_SYN1deg-Day_Terra-Aqua-NOAA20",
version="Edition4B",
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. Official links
- Read Software Package - SYN1deg - Direct File Download (.zip) VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- CERES SYN1deg Data Set Abstract VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- How to cite ASDC data VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Quality Summary: CERES_SYN1deg_Ed4B VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- ASDC Data and Information for CERES VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- NASA Earthdata Forum - CERES VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- NASA EOS ATB Documents: CERES VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- NASA Earth Observatory Article: A Delicate Balance: Signs of Change in the Tropics - New data sets were also used from NASA's Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments that fly aboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). VIEW RELATED INFORMATION