Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) Project
The long-term objective of the Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) Project is to produce and archive a global data set of shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) surface parameters for the 12-year period from July 1983 through June 1995 using International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) and Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) data. A key long-term goal is that these satellite-derived parameters have a monthly uncertainty of less than 10W/m2 or 5 percent, whichever is smaller.
The first SRB SW data product (Version 1.1) is accessible from the NASA Langley Research Center's Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) and is also available on CD-ROM. Version 1.1 includes March 1985 through December 1988. Each month's data consists of six files which contain descriptions of the algorithms, error information, monthly-averaged data, daily-averaged data, and graphics images which may be used to browse the most important SRB SW parameters. Information on obtaining the data may be obtained from the NASA EOS DAAC at Langley Research Center.
In general, surface measurements indicate that downward SW
flux is accurate to within 15 W/m2 for the oceans and Northern Hemisphere
inland regions with moderate terrain and low-snow conditions. Larger biases exist for
rainforests, deserts, high mountains, coastal areas, and pure-snow regions. A
comprehensive analysis of the SRB data set is being conducted with the intent of improving
the accuracy of the SW results prior to production of Version 2, which will also contain
LW surface parameters. Comments on these analyses are available.
CAGEX
Data from the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) Program/Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program/GEWEX Experiment (CAGEX) are a validation source for SRB. CAGEX is an ongoing campaign that provides calculated radiative fluxes, input data, and validating measurements over the ARM Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site in Oklahoma. For more information see the CAGEX Home Page. CAGEX is slowly being replaced by the new CERES/ARM Validation Experiment (CAVE) web site. CAVE has surface observations at 44 different locations around the globe with the latest collocated TOA CERES broadband radiation observations. You may access CAVE at: http://www-cave.larc.nasa.gov/cave/.
For more information:
SRB web sitePoints of Contact
Dr. Paul
Stackhouse, Jr. (Project Manager)
NASA/Langley Research Center
Hampton, Virginia
Dr. Tom
VonderHaar (Science Chair)
Colorado State University
CIRA
Ft. Collins, Colorado