This 30 minute Shortwave and Longwave Radiation Composite is one of several surface-layer data sets provided in the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement(ARM)/Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Continental-Scale International Project (GCIP) Near Surface Observation Data Set - 1997 (NESOB-97). This Radiation Composite was formed from five data sources: (1) the 25m ARM/Clouds and Radiation Testbed (CART) Multi-Filter Radiometer (MFR) 20 second data of Upwelling Longwave and Shortwave Irradiance; (2) the Solar and Infrared Radiation Observing System (SIROS) 20 second data of Upwelling and Downwelling Longwave and Shortwave Irradiance, which changed over to (3) the Solar Infrared Station (SIRS) 20 second data of Upwelling and Downwelling Longwave and Shortwave Irradiance; (4) the Broadband Solar Radiation Network (BSRN) 1 minute data of Downwelling Longwave and Shortwave Irradiance; and (5) the High Plains Climate Network (HPCN) hourly Solar Radiation data. This composite was developed by the merging of the 30-minute averaged values of Irradiance as derived by University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/Joint Office for Science Support (UCAR/JOSS) from the 20-second values provided by ARM for its 25m MFR station and its SIROS and SIRS stations; the 30-minute averaged values of Irradiance as derived by UCAR/JOSS from the 1-minute values provided by ARM for its BSRN station; and the hourly values provided by HPCN. UCAR/JOSS computed standard deviations for the averaged irradiance data when at least 15 observations were available within the 30-minute averaging interval. JOSS did not do any other quality control on the data set. This radiation composite contains data within the NESOB 1997 domain (100.5W to 94.5W longitude and 34N to 39N latitude) and time period (01 April 1997 through 31 March 1998). The ARM/GCIP NESOB-97 Shortwave and Longwave Radiation Composite Dataset contains eight metadata parameters and twelve data parameters and flags. The metadata parameters describe the date, time, network, station and location at which the data were collected. Data values are valid for the 30 minutes preceding the time of observation, and all times are UTC. The data parameters have an associated QC flag but the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/Joint Office for Science Support (UCAR/JOSS) does not Quality Control the data at the present time. The Quality Control flag is set to "U" for "Unchecked", unless the datum is missing, in which case the flag is set to "M". A few problems occurred with instrumentation during NESOB-97 which affected the quality of the data; explanations of these problems can be found in the dataset documentation.