The Atmospheric Sciences Data Center at NASA Langley Research Center processes, archives and distributes data relating to the Earth’s radiation budget, clouds, aerosols, and tropospheric chemistry. Several data holdings will be presented that provide a long term series which can be used for climate monitoring and climate change studies.

The Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) experiment is a cornerstone of NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise. The first CERES instrument was launched in November 1997 on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Satellite. CERES instruments are also currently flying on the EOS Terra and Aqua satellites. CERES produces a category of “ERBE-like” data products which are processed with algorithms similar to those used with the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) instrument data. ERBE measurements began in 1984. These two sets of instruments provide long term, overlapping values for parameters including broadband shortwave, longwave and net radiative fluxes for clear sky and cloudy conditions.

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment’s (SAGE) three instruments provide a nearly continuous climatology of the spatial distribution of stratospheric aerosols and ozone. SAGE I data are available from February 1979 to November 1981. SAGE II made measurements from October 1984 until June 2001, and the first of the SAGE III instruments has been providing data since May of 2002.

Since 1983, the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) has focused on the distribution and variation of cloud radiative properties to improve the understanding of the effects of clouds on climate, the radiation budget, and the long-term global hydrologic cycle. Global coverage for ISCCP is provided by five geostationary meteorological satellites (GOES-EAST, GOES-WEST, GMS, INSAT, and METEOSAT) and at least one polar orbiting NOAA satellite.

Information about these and other data holdings at the NASA LaRC ASDC is available at http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov.