Summary

Description

This NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of AVHRR reflectance and brightness temperatures was produced by the University of Wisconsin using the AVHRR Pathfinder Atmospheres - Extended (PATMOS-X) Version 5.3 processing system. The CDR spans from 1979 to the present with daily, global coverage generated from between two and ten NOAA and MetOp satellite passes per day. The source AVHRR data points, with a sensor resolution of 1.09 km near nadir, have been fitted to a 0.1 x 0.1 degree equal-angle grid in ascending and descending files. The calibrated reflectance channels in the visible spectrum (0.63, 0.86, and 1.6 microns) portion of the record were delivered as a CDR in Version 5.2 in 2010. This updated Version 5.3 extends the product to include brightness temperatures from the 3.75, 11 and 12 micron channels, as well as a suite of cloud products (the PATMOS-x Cloud Properties CDR). Version 5.3 also extends the period of record through the present and applies the newest calibration coefficients. In total, there are seven (7) AVHRR channel variables. Not counting the coordinate variables, there are 48 data and ancillary data variables in the netCDF data file to facilitate proper data usage. The file format was converted from HDF to netCDF-4 with metadata following the Climate and Forecast (CF) Conventions and Attribute Convention for Dataset Discovery (ACDD). The dataset is accompanied by algorithm documentation, data flow diagram and source code for the NOAA CDR Program.