Summary

Description

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is a facility instrument aboard the second Earth Observing System (EOS) polar-orbiting platform, EOS Aqua. In combination with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) and the Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB), AIRS constitutes an innovative atmospheric sounding group of visible, infrared, and microwave sensors. AIRS data will be generated continuously. Global coverage will be obtained twice daily (day and night) on a 1:30pm sun synchronous orbit from a 705-km altitude. Cloud-Cleared Radiances contain calibrated, geolocated channel-by-channel AIRS infrared radiances (milliWatts/m2/cm-1/steradian) that would have been observed within each Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) footprint if there were no clouds in the FOV and produced along with the AIRS Standard Product, as they are the radiances used to retrieve the Standard Product. Nevertheless, they are an order of magnitude larger in data volume than the remainder of the Standard Products and, many Standard Product users are expected to have little interest in the Cloud Cleared Radiance. For these reasons they are a separate output file, but like the Standard Product, are generated at all locations. (The Shortname for this product is AIRI2CCF_NRT).