CERES Regionally Averaged TOA Fluxes, Clouds and Aerosols Hourly NOAA-20 Edition 1C

The SSF1deg-Hour granule contains instantaneous gridded CERES FM6 Earth viewing unfiltered radiances for the shortwave (SW), longwave (LW) (determined from the difference between total and SW), and LW channel broadband. The SW, LW, and LW-channel radiances at spacecraft altitude are converted to Top of Atmosphere (ToA) fluxes based on the co-located Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) imager-defined scene.

The ToA fluxes are provided for both clear-sky and total-sky conditions. The incoming daily solar irradiance is from the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) and Total Solar Irradiance (TSI). These ToA fluxes are used to estimate surface fluxes.

The VIIRS radiances are used with CERES-specific cloud mask, and cloud property retrievals are stratified into four atmospheric layers: surface to 700 mb, 700 mb to 500 mb, 500 to 300 mb, and above 300 mb along with the total. Each cloud layer has properties such as amount, height, temperature, pressure, optical depth, emissivity, phase, water path, and water particle size. The cloud properties are averaged for day and night (24-hour) and day-only periods.

This product uses the instantaneous footprint-level product, CER_SSF_NOAA20-VIIRS_Edition1C, as input. It is the basis for the SSF1deg-Day and SSF1deg-Month NOAA20-VIIRS_Edition1C products, which provide daily and monthly averages by temporally interpolating between CERES observations.