The main focus of this paper is a comparison of unfiltered radiances measured by CERES instruments operating on three different platforms, namely the Suomi-NPP, Terra and Aqua satellites. Data for the comparison have been continuously collected since FM5 aboard the S-NPP started its science mission in February of 2012. Three difference strategies have been devised for the purpose of comparing CERES scanners, and two of them utilize a special scanning mode. Since in all three strategies viewing geometries of instruments (FM5 and FM3, and also FM5 and FM1) are matched, comparison at the unfiltered radiance level is enabled. This approach provides a data set with reduced uncertainties for comparing shortwave channels, and also outgoing daytime longwave radiation. Gridded averages are mainly processed to determine differences in scanner’s measurements, and statistics are computed primarily for “all-sky” conditions. However, in one of the strategies, comparison is done at a footprint level for a more stringent test of the consistency between the two instruments (FM5 and FM3) for specific scene types. Results of the unfiltered radiance comparison are based on ES8 or ERBE-like data product using Edition-1 for FM5, and Edition-3 for FM1 and FM3.

Date Published: 17 October 2014
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 9242, Remote Sensing of Clouds and the Atmosphere XIX; and Optics in Atmospheric Propagation and Adaptive Systems XVII, 92420Y (17 October 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2063320

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9242:
Remote Sensing of Clouds and the Atmosphere XIX; and Optics in Atmospheric Propagation and Adaptive Systems XVII
Adolfo Comerón; Karin Stein; John D. Gonglewski; Evgueni I. Kassianov; Klaus Schäfer; Richard H. Picard, Editor(s)