International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Flux Data

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1. General Information

This data set contains calculations of shortwave and longwave fluxes at the top of the atmosphere, in the atmosphere, and at the surface obtained using the Goddard Institute for Space Studies General Circulation Model radiation code and physical quantities based on datasets from ISCCP. In support of the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere - Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA-COARE), these fluxes are reported for the experiment domain and time period based on cloud measurements from GMS-4.

The principal investigator for this data set is William B. Rossow of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), who has subsetted this data set both temporally and spatially to conform to the TOGA COARE Field Campaign.

The production and distribution of this data set are being funded by NASA's Mission To Planet Earth Program. The data are not copyrighted, however we request that when you publish data or results using these data, please acknowledge as follows:

The authors would like to thank the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP), Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Distributed Active Archive Center (Code 610.2) at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 for the production and distribution of these data, respectively. These Activities are sponsored by NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE).

1.1 Temporal Coverage and Resolution. All times are in GMT. The temporal coverage for the TOGA COARE campaign and for this ISCCP subset is 4 months from November 1, 1992 through February 28, 1993. The sampling intervals are 3 hours for the GMS4 sensors.

1.2 Spatial Coverage and Resolution. The ISCCP subsets for the TOGA COARE campaign cover the region:


       Longitude:  120 E -->  10 W 
       Latitude:    20 S -->  20 N  

The spatial resolution is about 280 (2.5 degrees latitude - longitude)

1.3 Flight coordination table. The following table relating ER-2 and DC-8 flight numbers to the dates of the 13 mission flights of the NASA/TOGA COARE campaign provides correlation with airborne data acquisition activities during the TOGA COARE intensive operating period. The mission objective for each mission flight defaulted to radiation unless convection was forecast in the target area.

Date(UTC)       ER-2 Flight     DC-8 Flight     Objective

Jan 11-12       93-053          93-01-06        Radiation
Jan 17-18       93-054          93-01-07        Convection
Jan 18-19       93-055          93-01-08        Convection
Jan 25-26       93-056          93-01-09        Radiation
Jan 28-29	93-057		
jan 31-Feb 1    93-058          93-01-10        Radiation
Feb 2		93-059
Feb 4           93-060          93-01-11        Convection
Feb 6                           93-01-12        Convection
Feb 7           93-061                          
Feb 8-9         93-062          93-01-13        Convection
Feb 10-11       93-063          93-01-14        Convection
Feb 17-18                       93-01-15        Convection
Feb 20-21       93-065          93-01-16        Convection
Feb 22-23       93-066          93-01-17        Convection
Feb 23-24       93-067          93-01-18        Radiation

2. Data Source Information

The radiative fluxes are calculated from physical quantities based on ISCCP datasets. For additional information, see the published papers of Rossow et al.(1995) and Zhang et al.(1995).


3. Data Organization

3.1 General Characteristics

The ISCCP Flux TOGA COARE subset consists of 953 binary data files and is ~78.2 MB in volume. Files are named 'FC_DT_KA.YYMMDDHH' where YY=92, 93 (year), MM=11, 12, 1, 2 (month), DD=01, 02,.., 31 (date) and HH=00, 03, .. 21 (GMT).

3.2 Data Format

Each fixed-length data file is for one GMT and contains 48 1792-byte records, each corresponding to one of the following parameters, ordered here by direct access record numbers used in the read program:

     (1) SW downwelling at TOA;
     (2) SW upwelling   at TOA;
     (3) SW downwelling at SRF;
     (4) SW upwelling   at SRF;
     (5) LW upwelling   at TOA;
     (6) LW upwelling   at SRF;
     (7) LW downwelling at SRF;
     (8) SW upwelling   at TOA for 100% overcast;
     (9) SW downwelling at SRF for 100% overcast;
    (10) SW upwelling   at SRF for 100% overcast;
    (11) LW upwelling   at TOA for 100% overcast;
    (12) LW upwelling   at SRF for 100% overcast;
    (13) LW downwelling at SRF for 100% overcast;
    (14) SW upwelling   at TOA for clear sky;
    (15) SW downwelling at SRF for clear sky;
    (16) SW upwelling   at SRF for clear sky;
    (17) LW upwelling   at TOA for clear sky;
    (18) LW upwelling   at SRF for clear sky;
    (19) LW downwelling at SRF for clear sky;
    (20) Cosine solar zenith angle (0 --> 1);
    (21) Cloud fraction (0 --> 1);
    (22) Cloud top T (K);
    (23) Cloud TAU;
    (24) Surface T (K);
    (25) Surface reflectance form D1/C2;
    (26) Actually used surface reflectance;
    (27) Surface air T (K);
    (28) Cloud top pressure (mb);
    (29) Cloud base pressure (mb);
    (30) Surface pressure (mb);
    (31) T at 900 mb;
    (32) T at 740 mb;
    (33) T at 620 mb;
    (34) T at 500 mb;
    (35) T at 375 mb;
    (36) T at 245 mb;
    (37) T at 115 mb;
    (38) Pressure of tropopause;
    (39) T at tropopause;
    (40) T at 50 mb of stratosphere;
    (41) T at 15 mb of stratosphere;
    (42) Precipitable water (cm) for layer of 900 mb;
    (43) Precipitable water (cm) for layer of 740 mb;
    (44) Precipitable water (cm) for layer of 620 mb;
    (45) Precipitable water (cm) for layer of 500 mb;
    (46) Precipitable water (cm) for layer of 375 mb;
    (47) Column ozone amount (Dobson);
    (48) Total precipitable water (cm) for all 5 tropospheric layers;

4. Data Access

4.1 Online

access iconAccess ISCCP Flux files online

4.3 Software

The following Fortran 77 code was provided by the data producer to read the ISCCP Flux data files.




         OPEN(UNIT=71,FILE=UNIXFI,
     *  STATUS='OLD',ACCESS='direct',recl= 1792,FORM='UNFORMATTED',
     *  IOSTAT=IOS)
C:   UNIXFI is in CHARACTERS defining the data file under specific UNIX
C:   environments
C:   The direct-access rec. number corresponds to the serial number
C:   for each of the 48 parameters;
C:   i = lon: 49 --> 76 (E120 -- 190) & j =  Lat: 29 --> 44 (S20 -- N20)
      do 688 k = 1, 48
      WRITE(71,rec=k)((flux(i,j,k),i=49,76),j=29,44)
  688 continue 
      CLOSE(71)


5. Data Quality Assessment

ISCCP Radiative Fluxes is an analyzed, gridded data set. Quality assessment information for this dataset may be found in the published work of Zhang and Rossow.


6. Points of Contact


7. DATA STATUS AND PLAN

The TOGA COARE data is part of the Goddard DISC's permanent field campaign archive.

8. REFERENCES

  1. Rossow, W.B., and Y-C. Zhang, 1995: Calculation of surface and top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes from physical quantities based on ISCCP datasets, Part II: Validation and first results. J. Geophys. Res., 100, 1167-1197.

  2. Zhang, Y-C., W.B. Rossow and A.A. Lacis, 1995: Calculation of surface and top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes from physical quantities based on ISCCP datasets, Part I: Method and sensitivity to input data uncertainties. . Geophys. Res., 100, 1149-1165.

  3. WMO/TD-No. 58: The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Description of Reduced Resolution Radiance Data, July 1985 (Revised august 1987), World Meteorological Organization, Geneva.

  4. WMO/TD-No, 266: International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Documentation of Cloud Data, December 1988 (Revised April 1991). World Meteorological Organization, Geneva.

  5. TOGA COARE Science Data Workshop II Proceedings, March 15-17, 1994, page 4.

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Last update:Thu Dec 18 15:34:59 EST 2003
Page Author: Hydrology Data Support Team -- hydrology-disc@listserv.gsfc.nasa.gov
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