Validation of Clouds and Earth Radiant Energy System instruments aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites

Abstract

A comparison of unfiltered radiances measured by Clouds and Earth Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments (FM1 and FM4) operating on two different platforms, Terra and Aqua satellites, is presented. Data for the comparison were collected at orbital crossings in July and August 2002 and June 2003. Using a special scanning mode, viewing geometries of the instruments were matched to provide a large data set for comparing all three channels. In addition, the data collected over Greenland were used for a more stringent test of the consistency of the shortwave radiances. Statistics are computed for different scene types, and a confidence test is applied to compiled averages to show the consistency of 1% between measurements taken from the two different platforms. Results of the unfiltered radiance comparison are based on Edition2 of the FM1 and FM4 ES8 (Earth Radiation Budget Experiment–like) data product.