Description
ERBE_S4G_SC_2.5_1 is the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) S-4G Scanner (SC) 2.5 degree Regional Averages data set. It contains Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) S-4G Scanner (SC) 2.5 degrees Regional Averages in Hierarchical Data Format. Data collection for this data set is complete.
ERBE was a multi-satellite system designed to measure the Earth's radiation budget. The ERBE instruments flew on a mid-inclination National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) and two sun-synchronous National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites, NOAA-9 and NOAA-10. NOAA-9 and NOAA-10 provided global coverage and the ERBS provided coverage between 67.5 degrees north and south latitude. Each satellite carried both a scanner and a non-scanner instrument package. The scanner instrument package contained three detectors to measure shortwave (0.2 to 5 microns), longwave (5 to 50 microns) and total waveband radiation (.2 to 50 microns). Each detector normally scanned the Earth perpendicular to the satellite ground-track from horizon-to-horizon. The detectors were thermistors which used space views on every scan as a reference point to guard against drift. They were located at the focal point of a f/1.84 Cassegrain telescope, whose aluminum-coated mirrors were overcoated to enhance ultraviolet reflectivity. The total channel had no filter; therefore it absorbed all wavelengths. The shortwave channel was a fused silica filter which transmitted only shortwave radiation. The longwave channel was a multilayer filter on a diamond substrate to reject shortwave energy and accept longwave. To enhance the spectral flatness of the detectors, each thermistor chip was coated with a thin layer of black paint. The effective field of view of the scanner was 3 degrees. The ERBE S-4G product contained averages of radiant flux and albedo on regional, zonal, and global scales. The data for the S-4G product were arranged by parameter values. The various combinations of the satellites reflected the actual duration of the scanners.
Product Summary
Citation
Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.