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

    Metadata Updated: October 23, 2025

    CER_SSF_NOAA20-FM6-VIIRS_Edition1C is the NOAA-20 Single Scanner Footprint (SSF) Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) Level 2 observed Top of Atmosphere (ToA) broadband radiances and fluxes Edition1C data product. The last CERES instrument, Flight Model (FM) 6, was launched on board the Joint Polar-Orbiting Satellite System 1 (JPSS-1) satellite, now known as NOAA-20, on November 18, 2017. The data product begins May 1, 2018, and is in progress. The CERES footprint has a nominal 24-kilometer (km) resolution at nadir and a swath width of approximately 3,000 km. The product provides global coverage over a day.The SSF granule contains instantaneous CERES FM6 Earth viewing footprints filtered radiances for the total, shortwave (SW), and longwave (LW) broadband channels and the unfiltered SW, LW (determined from the difference between total and SW), and LW channel radiances. 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.

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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    Dates

    Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date October 23, 2025

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from NASA Data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date October 23, 2025
    Publisher NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC
    Maintainer
    Identifier 10.5067/NOAA20/CERES/SSF-FM6_L2.001C
    Data Last Modified 2025-09-10
    Category Earth Science
    Public Access Level public
    Bureau Code 026:00
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Harvest Object Id 6dd0b71d-6d59-407f-ac3f-6a9c16bc1ab9
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    Homepage URL https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/
    Old Spatial "CARTESIAN",{"Boundary":{"Points":{"Latitude":-90,"Longitude":-180},{"Latitude":-90,"Longitude":180},{"Latitude":90,"Longitude":180},{"Latitude":90,"Longitude":-180},{"Latitude":-90,"Longitude":-180}}}
    Program Code 026:000
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash 234bd79e755834eb1742d1ecaad98163ef7faaf3925a6b871fd3507b352200cf
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 2018-05-01/2018-05-01

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