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    • International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Stage D2 Monthly Cloud Products - Revised Algorithm in Hierarchical Data Format

    Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

    The ISCCP_D2 data set contains monthly, 280 KM equal-area grid data from various polar and geostationary satellites. Climatological Summary Product contents contain monthly average of D1 quantities including mean diurnal cycle, distribution and properties of total cloudiness and cloud types.The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP), the first project of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), was established in 1982 (WMO-35 1982, Schiffer and Rossow 1983): - To produce a global, reduced resolution, calibrated and normalized radiance data set containing basic information on the properties of the atmosphere from which cloud parameters can be derived. - To stimulate and coordinate basic research on techniques for inferring the physical properties of clouds from the condensed radiance data set and to apply the resulting algorithms to derive and validate a global cloud climatology for improving the parameterization of clouds in climate models. - To promote research using ISCCP data that contributes to improved understanding of the Earth's radiation budget and hydrological cycle. Since 1983 an international group of institutions has collected and analyzed satellite radiance measurements from up to five geostationary and two polar orbiting satellites to infer the global distribution of cloud properties and their diurnal, seasonal and interannual variations. The primary focus of the first phase of the project (1983-1995) was the elucidation of the role of clouds in the radiation budget (top of the atmosphere and surface). In the second phase of the project (1995 onwards) the analysis also concerns improving understanding of clouds in the global hydrological cycle. The ISCCP analysis combines satellite-measured radiances (Stage B3 data, Schiffer and Rossow 1985), Rossow et al. 1987) with the TOVS atmospheric temperature-humidity and ice/snow correlative data sets to obtain information about clouds and the surface. The analysis method first determines the presence of absence of clouds in each individual image pixel and retrieves the radiometric properties of the cloud for each cloudy pixel and of the surface for each clear pixel. The pixel analysis is performed separately for each satellite radiance data set and the results reported in the Stage DX data product, which has a nominal resolution of 30 km and 3 hours. The Stage D1 product is produced by summarizing the pixel-level results every 3 hours on an equal-area map with 280 km resolution and merging the results from separate satellites with the atmospheric and ice/snow data sets to produce global coverage at each time. The Stage D2 data product is produced by averaging the Stage D1 data over each month, first at each of the eight three hour time intervals and then over all time intervals.

    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 September 19, 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 September 19, 2025
    Publisher NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC
    Maintainer
    Identifier 10.5067/ISCCP/D2
    Data Last Modified 2025-09-11
    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 40aacf8e-07eb-4796-b684-4d528ee7fde2
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    Homepage URL https://asdc.larc.nasa.gov/project/ISCCP
    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 c4d3a7fc5a9a05c2bf1c6704ef7303efcbd2eadf7f0f24c178491f7a66e3f1bd
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 1983-07-01/1983-07-01

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