The Clouds and Earth Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument was designed to make measurements of solar radiance reflected from the Earth (0.2 to 0.5 microns) and radiance emitted from the Earch (5.0 to 50+ microns) with 1% accuracies. The CERES design evolved from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment instrument which had similar objectives. The CERES also had a channel to measure radiance in the 8 to 12 micron window emitted by the Earth for studying the effects of water vapor on the Earth's radiation budget. A CERES instrument flew on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission and 2 are operating on the TERRA spacecraft. One instrument will map the geographical distribution of radiation and the other will measure the anisotrophy of the radiance field. Two CERES instruments will also fly on the AQUA spacecraft. The design features of the telescope and the rationales are described. These aspects of the instrument should be understood by users of the data for a number of purposes. Each channel has its separate telescope to gather radiation onto its detector, which is a thermistor-bolometer. There is a total channel which measures radiances over the range 0.2 to 50+ microns. The shortwave (0.2-5.0 micron) and window (8-12 micron) channel each have filters to provide the desired band. The emitted radiation is computed as the total minus the shortwave radiance.

Date Published: 18 January 2002
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 4483, Earth Observing Systems VI, (18 January 2002); doi: 10.1117/12.453463

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4483:
Earth Observing Systems VI
William L. Barnes, Editor(s)