CERES Single Scanner Footprint (SSF) TOA/Surface Fluxes, Clouds and Aerosols NOAA20-FM6-VIIRS Edition1C

The SW, LW, and LW-channel radiances at spacecraft altitude are converted to Top of Atmosphere (ToA) fluxes based on the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) imager-defined scene. These ToA fluxes are used to estimate surface fluxes. The VIIRS radiances are used with CERES-specific cloud masks and retrievals to provide pixel-level cloud properties, and this data is averaged over the larger CERES footprint for up to two distinct non-overlapping cloud layers.

Each cloud layer has properties such as amount, height, temperature, pressure, optical depth, emissivity, phase, water path, and water particle size. Each footprint contains the VIIRS aerosol optical depth and imager radiance values. Only footprints with adequate imager coverage are included on the SSF product, much less than the full set of footprints that can be found on the CERES ERBE-like Instantaneous TOA Estimates (ES8) product.

The product is distributed in hourly network Common Data Format (NetCDF) 4 files, each containing approximately six-tenths of an orbit. Besides providing flux observations, the SSF product can be used to understand how clouds and aerosols change the amount of radiation reflected or emitted by the Earth. A follow-on instantaneous gridded product, SSF1deg-Hour, provides similar information on a 1-degree equal area grid.

CERES is a key component of the Earth Observing System (EOS) program. The last CERES instrument, FM6, was launched on board the Joint Polar-Orbiting Satellite System 1 (JPSS-1) satellite, now known as NOAA-20, on November 18, 2017.