Years of Record: 2006/06 to 2017/01
CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations ) was launched on April 28, 2006 to study the impact of clouds and aerosols on the Earth's radiation budget and climate. It flies in formation with five other satellites in the international "A-Train" constellation for...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily
Domain: Global Years of Record: 2000/03 to 2017/02
The CERES-EBAF product provides 1-degree regional, zonal and global monthly mean Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA) and surface (SFC) longwave (LW), shortwave (SW), and net (NET) fluxes under clear and all-sky conditions. EBAF is used for climate model evaluation, estimating the Earth's global mean...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Loeb, Norman
Years of Record: 1982/01 to 2009/12
"CLARA-A1 (CLoud, Albedo and RAdiation dataset, AVHRR-based, version 1) is a global dataset of cloud properties, surface albedo and surface radiation products, generated by the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF). The products are derived from measurements of the...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Daily,Monthly,Pentad
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Stengel, Martin
Years of Record: 1982/01 to 2009/12
Clouds cover about 70% of the earth's surface. They are important components of the cliimate's water and energy budgets. Historically, cloud reports have come from station or ship observations. The satellite observation era, beginning in the 1980’s and spanning now more than 30 years, allows...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Stubenrauch, Claudia
Years of Record: 2000/03 to 2018/05
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is scanning instrument that makes measurements in 36 spectral bands from the visible to the thermal infrared at spatial resolutions from 250 m to 1 km. There are MODIS instruments aboard two sun-synchronous polar-orbiting NASA satellites:...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | HDF-EOS
Timestep: Daily,Monthly,Weekly
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Pincus, Robert
Years of Record: 2006/06 to 2010/11
CloudSat is a satellite mission designed to measure the vertical structure of clouds from space. The radar data produces detailed images of cloud structures.
CloudSat is one of a constellation of satellites known as the A-Train (Cloudsat, CALIPSO, PARASOL, Aqua, Aura, GCOM-W1). The satellites fly...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global Years of Record: 2006/07 to 2011/02
A global (82S-82N) cloud fraction data set, providing a unique view of cloud vertical structure, has been developed based on the complimentary spaceborne remote sensing capabilities of the CloudSat radar and the CALISPSO lidar. The data set provides monthly mean cloud fraction over several vertical...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly,Seasonal,Annual
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Kay, Jennifer
Cloud processes and feedbacks are recognized as the largest uncertainty in climate model projections of climate change. Progress in understanding the roles of clouds in climate change has in part been hampered by the lack of a consistent definition of clouds and cloud types in models and...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Kay, Jennifer
Years of Record: 1901/01 to 2015/12
The CRU TS series of data sets (CRU TS = Climatic Research Unit Timeseries) contain monthly timeseries of precipitation, daily maximum and minimum temperatures, cloud cover, and other variables covering Earth's land areas for 1901-2015 (CRU TS4.0 is a recent release). The data set is gridded to 0....
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly
Domain: Global 
Years of Record: 1952/01 to 2008/12
"The Extended Edited Synoptic Cloud Reports Archive makes use of routine synoptic observations made by humans on ships over the ocean and at weather stations over land. Following the synoptic code (WMO, 1974), observers report the fraction of sky dome covered by all clouds, the fraction of sky dome...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Sub-daily
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Norris, Joel
Years of Record: 1954/01 to 2009/12
This digital archive provides multi-year monthly, seasonal, and annual averages in 5x5-degree grid boxes (or 10x10-degree boxes for some quantities over the ocean). Daytime and nighttime averages, as well as the diurnal average (average of day and night), are given. Nighttime averages were computed...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly,Seasonal
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Norris, Joel
ICOADS (International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set) is the most comprehensive archive of global marine surface climate observations available. Variables include SST, SLP, air temperature, wind speed, cloud amount, and others. There is no processing beyond initial quality control. ICOADS...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii | binary | IMMA
Timestep: Climatology,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Deser, Clara
Years of Record: 1983/07 to 2009/12
The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) makes use of routine observations by operational weather satellites to provide a long-term (1983-2009), gridded, global record of cloud properties. ISCCP uses observations in the visible and infrared window portions of the spectrum to...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | binary | HDF
Timestep: Climatology,Sub-daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Pincus, Robert
Years of Record: 2004/01 to 2012/12
The SEVIRI cloud mask dataset has been generated and released by the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF) to enhance the cloud property dataset CLAAS. The SEVIRI cloud mask dataset contains the cloud mask in 15 minutes temporal resolution. The dataset is pixel...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | HDF
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Africa, Atlantic Ocean, Europe The Ocean Product Suite (v7) from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) is available in netCDF (v4) format. The RSS Ocean Product Suite includes numerous data products for the SSMI/SSMIS instruments on the DMSP F08, F10, F11, F13, F14, F15, F17 polar orbiting satellites. These are part of the NASA Making...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global 
Years of Record: 1973/01 to 2014/12
The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) Version 2.0 Surface Flux and Meteorological Dataset is a monthly mean gridded dataset of marine surface measurements and derived fluxes constructed using optimal interpolation. Input for the period 1973 to 2006 are ICOADS Release 2.4 ship data and the...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Kent, Elizabeth
Years of Record: 1983/01 to 2005/12
The EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF) provides a regional dataset of surface solar radiation, incoming direct radiation and effective cloud albedo at uniquely high spatial (0.03 deg) and temporal (up to hourly) resolutions for 1983 to 2005. The data set covers...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Africa, Europe, South America, Atlantic Ocean
See Expert Guidance by Trentmann, Jörg
