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Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) S-4G Scanner (SC) 2.5, 5, 10 degrees Zonal and Global Regional Averages

ERBE_S4G_SC_ZG_1 is the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) S-4G Scanner (SC) 2.5, 5, 10 degrees Zonal and Global Regional Averages data set. It is in Hierarchical Data Format. Data collection for this data set is complete. ERBE was a multi-satellite system designed to measure the Earth's radiation budget. The ERBE instruments flew on a mid-inclination National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) and two sun-synchronous National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites, NOAA-9 and NOAA-10. NOAA-9 and NOAA-10 provided global coverage and the ERBS provided coverage between 67.5 degrees north and south latitude. Each satellite carried both a scanner and a non-scanner instrument package. The scanner instrument package contained three detectors to measure shortwave (0.2 to 5 microns), longwave (5 to 50 microns) and total waveband radiation (.2 to 50 microns). Each detector normally scanned the Earth perpendicular to the satellite ground-track from horizon-to-horizon. The detectors were thermistors which used space views on every scan as a reference point to guard against drift. They were located at the focal point of a f/1.84 Cassegrain telescope, whose aluminum-coated mirrors were overcoated to enhance ultraviolet reflectivity. The total channel had no filter; therefore it absorbed all wavelengths. The shortwave channel was a fused silica filter which transmitted only shortwave radiation. The longwave channel was a multilayer filter on a diamond substrate to reject shortwave energy and accept longwave. To enhance the spectral flatness of the detectors, each thermistor chip was coated with a thin layer of black paint. The effective field of view of the scanner was 3 degrees. The ERBE S-4G product contained averages of radiant flux and albedo on regional, zonal, and global scales. The data for the S-4G product were arranged by parameter values. The various combinations of the satellites reflected the actual duration of the scanners.

Map of Earth