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Full catalog/PREFIRE_SAT1_2B-FLX
PREFIRE_SAT1_2B-FLX·vR01·dataset

Far-infrared heat escaping the poles (PREFIRE satellite 1)

Polar Radiant Energy in the Far InfraRed Experiment (PREFIRE) Spectral Flux from PREFIRE Satellite 1 R01
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 2B active netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. How much heat energy, especially in the far-infrared, is escaping from the poles to space at the top of the atmosphere, broken out across many wavelengths. It also includes total outgoing heat radiation and surface heat-emission properties.

How it's made. Derived from the PREFIRE thermal infrared spectrometer aboard a small CubeSat satellite, using an estimation method that pulls in cloud, weather, and other supporting data; science collection began in July 2024.

How & where you'd use it. Aims to fill gaps in our understanding of the polar energy budget and to improve climate and weather models, since this far-infrared polar heat has rarely been measured at scale before.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › EARTH RADIATION BUDGETATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › OUTGOING LONGWAVE RADIATIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › LONGWAVE RADIATION › UPWELLING LONGWAVE RADIATIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › RADIATIVE FLUX

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2024-07-24 → ongoing
  • Measured byPREFIRE-SAT1 (TIRS-PREFIRE)
  • Processing levelLevel 2B
  • Spatial extent-180, -84, 180, 84
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • 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

Satellite 1 (PREFIRE_SAT1_2B-FLX) contains surface emissivity retrieved from data collected by the PREFIRE Thermal Infrared Spectrometer (TIRS-PREFIRE) aboard PREFIRE-SAT1. Dual CubeSats each carry a PREFIRE Thermal Infrared Spectrometer (TIRS-PREFIRE), a push broom spectrometer with 63 channels measuring mid- and far-infrared (FIR) radiation from approximately 5 to 53 µm. Most polar emissions are in the FIR but have not been measured on a large scale. PREFIRE aims to fill knowledge gaps in the global energy budget by more accurately characterizing polar emissions. This information will then be assimilated into global circulation and other models to predict future conditions more accurately. PREFIRE_SAT1_2B-FLX contains spectral flux at the top of atmosphere for all available TIRS-PREFIRE channels as derived from PREFIRE Spectral Radiance (PREFIRE_SAT1_1B-RAD) data using an Optimal Estimation retrieval with inputs from the PREFIRE_SAT1_2B-MSK (cloud mask), PREFIRE_SAT1_AUX-MET (Auxiliary Meteorology), and PREFIRE_SAT1_AUX-SAT collections. PREFIRE_SAT1_2B-FLX also contains the top-of-atmosphere Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) broadband flux. The primary purpose of this collection is to assess the radiative activities over the polar regions to better quantify the energy budget there. Science data retrieval started July 24, 2024 and is ongoing. Geographic coverage is global, with the greatest concentration of data in the polar regions. Within the orbital swath there are eight distinct tracks of data associated with the eight separate spatial scenes for each PREFIRE-TIRS. At the beginning of the mission, the approximate scene footprint sizes were 11.8 km x 34.8 km (cross-track x along-track), with gaps between each scene of approximately 24.2 km. The entire swath was ~264 km across. Note that the scene footprint and swath sizes quoted here are for the orbit altitude soon after launch. However, the footprint size will slowly become smaller as the orbit altitude decreases with time. This data has a temporal resolution of 0.707 seconds and is available in netCDF-4. The spectral flux data for the sister instrument aboard PREFIRE-SAT2 can be found in the PREFIRE_SAT2_2B-FLX collection.

Get the data

prefire_sat1_2b-flx_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="PREFIRE_SAT1_2B-FLX",
    version="R01",
    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.