The experiments on NASA's Terra and Aqua spacecraft are focused on collecting global data sets needed to study the inter-relationships inherent in the Earth's coupled atmosphere-land-ocean system. Seasonal and interannual climate studies will use the data from these experiments to address issues such as the Earth's radiant energy budget, global cloudiness, and effects of atmospheric aerosols and land surfaces.

This paper will provide a description of the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) data products and associated geophysical parameters available from the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) Atmospheric Sciences Data Center (ASDC).

The CERES instruments use broadband radiometric measurements in three channels to provide both solar-reflected and Earth-emitted radiation throughout the atmosphere and, in combination with simultaneous measurements from instruments such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), to provide new information on cloud properties. CERES data products are designed to provide the most accurately possible estimates of solar and thermal infrared radiative fluxes at the top of the atmosphere, at the surface of the Earth, and at several levels within the atmosphere.

The CERES data products contain key surface and atmospheric parameters (e.g., cloud properties, aerosols, water vapor, surface temperature, surface wind speed) that affect the Earth's radiative energy. These parameters can be used to facilitate studies of water vapor, aerosols, and cloud feedback in the climate system.

The spatial scales of the data products range from a single CERES field of view at ~ 20km, to global view (e.g., 1 degree latitude/longitude gridded data over the globe). The time scales range from instantaneous radiative fluxes to 3hourly averages, to daily means, to monthly averages.

The ASDC plays a major role in enabling basic scientific research by providing data and documentation to the user community. Information about all of the available CERES data products and how to obtain them can be found at the ASDC web site, http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov