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Vegetation Data
The goals of the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) are (1) to understand the radiation balance between the Sun, Earth, atmosphere, and space and (2) to establish an accurate, long-term baseline data set for detection of climate changes. Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) data are fundamental to the development of realistic climate models and to the understanding of natural and anthropogenic perturbations of the climate system. As part of ERBE, measurements of broadband shortwave radiation reflected from the Earth-atmosphere system were obtained, from which top of atmosphere albedo values were calculated. In addition, values from scenes determined to be free of clouds were analyzed separately and clear-sky albedos were derived.
For this study, only the clear-sky albedos are included. The ERBE data sets for the International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Initiative 2 contain global, top of atmosphere, clear sky albedo data from January 1986 to February 1990. The original ERBE albedo data at 2.5° spatial resolution were re-gridded to a 1° spatial resolution by the ISLSCP 2 staff. Both the original data at 2.5° resolution and the 1° data set are provided.
Clear-sky albedos were obtained from the scanning radiometer instruments on Earth Radiation Budget Experiment. For details on the ERBE satellites, instruments, and data analysis techniques, the user is referred to Barkstrom et al. (1990), Harrison et al. (1990), and Harrison et al. (1993).
Data Provider: Bruce R. Barkstrom
 Data Files (ISLSCP II Disc #1) |
 Data Set Documentation |
 Image Viewing Tutorial |
These data were resampled from their original 2.5-degree spatial resolution to 1-degree. Interpolation was done where 1-degree pixel areas fell on more than one 2.5-degree pixel. In cases where one of the pixels did not have data, the entire pixel was given a "no data" value.
The files can be decompressed using the PKZip program. Each file contains ASCII text with 360 values representing albedo (unitless) for each 1 by 1 degree pixel. A value of -99 represents missing data. There are 180 lines of data; one line for each degree of latitude. Each line is terminated by a newline character.
Each file name is an albedo image for a given month.
Example: erbe_albedo_1d_19940400.asc is the albedo for April 1994.
The data are structured so that the upperleft corner of the first pixel is located at 90 North latitude and 180 West longitude. Each pixel represents a 1 by 1 degree area, with the pixel edges falling on whole degree boundaries.
Related Pages:
ISLSCP Initiative II Home
General Data Overview
Vegetation Data Overview
ERBE Monthly Albedo
Revision Date: January 13, 2005