Description
This data set provides 3-hourly global fields of 47 surface and cloud properties that serve as inputs to the GEWEX longwave algorithm of the NASA World Climate Research Programme/Global Energy and Water-Cycle Experiment (WCRP/GEWEX) Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) Project. Inputs to the algorithm were obtained from the following sources:Cloud parameters were derived from the International Satellite Cloud ClimatologyProject (Rossow and Schiffer, 1999) DX data product. The cloud pixels wereseparated into categories of high, middle and low where middle and low cloudscould be composed of ice or water. Cloud fractions and cloud optical depthswere determined within these categories. Cloud particle sizes were assumed andcloud physical thicknesses were also assigned based upon information fromliterature. Random overlap is used between the high, middle and low layers tobetter approximate undercast conditions.Temperature and moisture profiles were obtained from the 4-D data assimilationGoddard EOS Data Assimilation System, level-4 (GEOS-4) obtained from the GlobalModeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center(GSFC) (Bloom et al., 2005)