International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) B1 Uniform (B1U) Dataset

See documentation for list. The various file headers contain information on - navigation (i.e., calculating lat/lons for each pixel and vice versa) - calibration (i.e., calculating physical values for each image count ... e.g., converting counts to temperature) - timing (to calculate the time of each scan line). - and more Measurement resolution is dependent on the source geostationary instrument. The scans were spatially subsampled to reduce the file sizes.

This often results in a spatial resolution of 8 - 10 km near satellite nadir (the resolution decreases away from this point). The images are provided every 3 hours near (but not exactly at) synoptic hours (00, 03, 06, ..., 21 UTC). The spatial coverage spans the globe (longitudinally) but geostationary satellites can't really observe the poles.

The latitudinal extent is about 65 degrees. The temporal coverage begins in the 1978 for early SMS satellites. Each satellite will have a different temporal span than another.

The globe (longitudinally) can be considered covered beginning in 1982 when there were two satellites of the Western Hemisphere, one at the Prime Meridian and another over the Western Pacific (4 total). The true global coverage (5 satellites) began in 1998.