CERES ERBE-like Data Management Website Objective

With the NASA strategic objective to advance knowledge of Earth, the NASA Clouds and the Earth Radiant Energy System (CERES) project is designed to improve our understanding of (1) the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative energy budget of Earth, (2) its variability with time and, (3) the effects of clouds on the TOA energy budget. This website provides the information and results of the ERBE-like algorithm used by CERES to retrieve clear-sky and all-sky TOA fluxes, as well as, the effects of clouds on the TOA energy budget.

For more information about the CERES project, please visit the CERES website.

CERES ERBE-like Subsystem Overview

The ERBE-like Inversion Subsystem converts filtered CERES radiance measurements to instantaneous radiative flux estimates at the TOA for each CERES field of view. The basis for this subsystem is the ERBE Data Management System which produced TOA fluxes from the ERBE scanning radiometers onboard the ERBS (Earth Radiation Budget Satellite), NOAA-9, and NOAA-10 satellites over a 5-year period from November 1984 to February 1990 (Barkstrom 1984; Barkstrom and Smith 1986). The ERBE Inversion Subsystem (Smith et al. 1986) is a mature set of algorithms that has been well documented and tested. The strategy for the CERES ERBE-like products is to process the data through the same algorithms as those used by ERBE, with only minimal changes, such as those necessary to adapt to the CERES instrument characteristics.

The ERBE-like effort is included under the Instrument Working Group which is made up of members of the CERES Science Team and Data Management Team with personnel from the Climate Science Branch and support contractor personnel from SSAI.

References

Barkstrom, B. R.
1984: The Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE).
Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., vol. 65, pp. 1170-1185.

Barkstrom, B. R.; and Smith, G. L.
1986: The Earth Radiation Budget Experiment: Science and Implementation.
Rev. Geophys., vol. 24, pp. 379-390.

Smith, G. Louis; Green, Richard N.; Raschke, Ehrhard; Avis, Lee M.; Suttles, John T.;p Wielicki, Bruce A.; and Davies, Roger
1986: Inversion Methods for Satellite Studies of the Earth Radiation Budget: Development of Algorithms for the ERBE Mission.
Rev. Geophys., vol. 24, pp. 407-421.

The CERES ERBE-like Subsystem comes under the Instrument Working Group. ERBE-like Team Members include,