CERES Single Scanner Footprint (SSF) TOA/Surface Fluxes, Clouds and Aerosols TRMM-PFM Edition2B

CER_SSF_TRMM-PFM-VIRS_Edition2B is the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) Scanner Footprint (SSF) Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA)/Surface Fluxes, Clouds, and Aerosols Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)-protoflight model (PFM) Edition2B data product. Data was collected using the CERES PFM instrument on both the TRMM platform. Data collection for this product is complete.CER_SSF_TRMM-PFM-VIRS_Edition2B contains one hour of instantaneous CERES data for a single scanner instrument. The SSF combines instantaneous CERES data with scene information from a higher-resolution imager, such as Visible/Infrared Scanner (VIRS) on TRMM, MODIS on Terra and Aqua, and VIIRS on Suomi-NPP. Scene identification and cloud properties are defined at the higher imager resolution, and these data are averaged over the larger CERES footprint. For each CERES footprint, the SSF contains the number of cloud layers and, for each layer, the cloud amount, height, temperature, pressure, optical depth, emissivity, ice and liquid water path, and water particle size. The SSF also contains the CERES-filtered radiances for the total, shortwave (SW), and window (WN) channels and the unfiltered SW, longwave (LW), and WN radiances. The SW, LW, and WN radiances at spacecraft altitude are converted to Top-of-the-Atmosphere (TOA) fluxes based on the imager-defined scene. These TOA fluxes are used to estimate surface fluxes. On the SSF, only footprints with adequate imager coverage are included, which is much less than the full set of footprints on the CERES ES-8 product.CERES is a key Earth Observing System (EOS) program component. The CERES instruments provide radiometric measurements of the Earth's atmosphere from three broadband channels. The CERES missions follow the successful Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) mission. The first CERES instrument, PFM, was launched on November 27, 1997, as part of the TRMM. Two CERES instruments (FM1 and FM2) were launched into polar orbit on board the Earth Observing System (EOS) flagship Terra on December 18, 1999. Two additional CERES instruments (FM3 and FM4) were launched on board Earth Observing System (EOS) Aqua on May 4, 2002. The CERES FM5 instrument was launched on board the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite on October 28, 2011. The newest CERES instrument (FM6) was launched on board the Joint Polar-Orbiting Satellite System 1 (JPSS-1) satellite, now called NOAA-20, on November 18, 2017.