Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

DSCOVR EPIC Level 3 PAR Image

Metadata Updated: August 30, 2025

DSCOVR_EPIC_L3_PAR-image_01 is a view image showing data from DSCOVR_EPIC_L3_PAR, which is the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) Level 3 photosynthetically available radiation (PAR) version 1 data product. The EPIC observations of the Earth’s surface lit by the Sun made 13 times during the day in spectral bands centered on 443, 551, and 680 nm are used to estimate daily mean PAR at the ice-free ocean surface. PAR is defined as the quantum energy flux from the Sun in the 400-700 nm range. Daily mean PAR is the 24-hour averaged planar flux in that spectral range reaching the surface. It is expressed in E.m-2.d-1 (Einstein per meter squared per day). The factor required to convert E.m-2 d-1 units to mW.cm-2.µm-1 units are equal to 0.838 to an inaccuracy of a few percent regardless of meteorological conditions. The EPIC daily mean PAR product is generated on Plate Carrée (equal-angle) grid with an 18.4 km resolution at the equator and on an 18.4 km equal-area grid, i.e., the product is compatible with Ocean Biology Processing Group ocean color products.The EPIC PAR algorithm uses a budget approach, in which the solar irradiance reaching the surface is obtained by subtracting from the irradiance arriving at the top of the atmosphere (known), the irradiance reflected space (estimated from the EPIC Level 1b radiance data), taking into account atmospheric transmission (modeled). Clear and cloudy regions within a pixel do not need to be distinguished. This dismisses the need for often-arbitrary assumptions about cloudiness distribution and is therefore adapted to the relatively large EPIC pixels. A daily mean PAR is estimated on the source grid for each EPIC instantaneous daytime observation, assuming no cloudiness changes during the day, and the individual estimates are remapped and weight-averaged using the cosine of the Sun zenith angle. In the computations, wind speed, surface pressure, and water vapor amount are extracted from NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) Reanalysis 2 data, aerosol optical thickness, and angstrom coefficient from MERRA-2 (Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2) data, and ozone amount from EPIC Level 2 data. Areas contaminated by sun glint are excluded using a threshold on sun glint reflectance calculated using wind data. Ice masking is based on NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Center) near real-time ice fraction data. Additional information about the EPIC ocean surface PAR products can be found at the NASA DSCOVR: EPIC website: https://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/, under “Science -> Products -> Ocean Surface” (https://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/products/ocean).

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.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date August 30, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date August 30, 2025
Publisher NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC
Maintainer
Identifier 10.5067/EPIC/DSCOVR/DSCOVR_EPIC_L3_PAR-image_L3.01
Data Last Modified 2025-08-27
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 b98bfa84-74e7-46f5-930b-c7e265e38ec0
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://epic.gsfc.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 6d8df3dc0da8076f7bca67c6edbbb74e19d3fe7e7be37250207ecfec223201dd
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 2015-06-13/2015-06-13

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.