Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) Monthly Data Products from NCDC

Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Metadata:

• Identification_Information
• Data_Quality_Information
• Spatial_Reference_Information
• Distribution_Information
• Metadata_Reference_Information

Identification_Information:

Citation:

Citation_Information:

Originator: Ralph Ferraro, E/RA2

Publication_Date: Unknown

Title: Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) Monthly Data Products from NCDC

Edition:

Geospatial_Data_Presentation_Form:

Series_Information:

Series_Name:

Issue_Identification:

Publication_Information:

Publication_Place:

Publisher: NOAA/NESDIS/Office of Research and Applications

Other_Citation_Details:

Online_Linkage: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/satellite/ssmi/ssmiproducts.html

Description:

Abstract:

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) home page is "http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/". The Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) Dataset home page on the WWW is "http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/satellite/ssmi/ssmiproducts.html". For annonymous ftp, ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov, cd /pub/data/ssmi/1deg (1 degree), cd /pub/data/ssmi/25deg (2.5 degree). The Defense Satellite Meteorological Program (DMSP) Special Sensor Microwave/Imager(SSM/I) became operational in July 1987 on the F-8 satellite. Subsequent SSM/I's have been flown on the F-10 (November 1990), F-11 (December 1991), F-12 (August 1994), and most recently, F-13 (March 1995) satellites. The SSM/I is a seven channel passive microwave radiometer operating at four frequencies (19,35, 22,235, 37.0, and 85.5 GHz) and dual-polarization (except at 22.235 GHz which is V-polarization only). Researchers in the Microwave Sensing Group (MSG) of the Land Sciences Branch (LSB) are actively involved in SSM/I algorithm development and validation, and the application of such algorithms for weather forecasting and analysis, and CLIMATE EVALUATION. Additionally, the SSM/I is being used to develop algorithms for use on the NOAA-K,L,M Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU), which will contain some frequencies similar to those on the SSM/I (e.g., 23.8, 31.4, and 89.0 GHz), but will not have polarization information. These SSM/I products are useful for evaluating the mean climate state, it's interannual and seasonal variations, and the detection of anomalies associated with ENSO and regional climatic variations. The MSG has assembled a time series of the entire SSM/I archive, which includes data from July 1987 to the present. Monthly average products are produced for precipitation, cloud liquid water, total precipitable water, snow cover, sea-ice cover, and ocean surface wind speed. A) 1-Degree Products The files have the following naming convention: ppp.yy where ppp=product type and yy=year (e.g., 87 for 1987). Each field is stored as a 1440 byte record of 4-byte real variables which have been generated on a personal computer. Each record contains 360 values corresponding to each degree of longitude, with the first element corresponding to longitude 0.5 degrees East, the second 1.5 E, etc. and the last 0.5 degrees West. The first record contains data centered at latitude 89.5 degrees South, the second record contains data centered at 88.5 S, etc. and the last 89.5 N. Missing data are indicated by a value of -999.0. The first 180 records in the data set correspond to January of that year, the next 180 is February, etc. The total length of each annual data set is 180*1440*12=3,110,400 bytes. The following describes the content of the 1 degree gridded files: 1. cfr.yy - Monthly mean cloud fraction (0 - 1.0) 2. ice.yy - Monthly mean sea-ice cover (0 - 100 percent) 3. lwp.yy - Monthly mean liquid water path (1000 * mm) 4. pfr.yy - Monthly mean rain fraction (0 - 1.0) 5. pre.yy - Monthly rainfall (mm) 6. snw.yy - Monthly mean snow cover fraction (0 - 1.0 percent) 7. ssa.yy - Monthly mean sampling fraction (0 - 1.0) 8. win.yy - Monthly mean surface wind speed (m/sec) 9. wvp.yy - Monthly mean total precipitable water (mm) B) 2.5-Degree Products The files have the following naming convention: ppp.mon where ppp=product type. Each field is stored as a 576 byte record of 4-byte real variables which have been generated on a personal computer. Each record contains 144 values corresponding to each 2.5 degree of longitude, with the first element corresponding to longitude 1.25 degrees East, the second 2.5 E, etc. and the last 1.25 degrees West. The first record contains data centered at latitude 88.75 degrees South, the second record contains data centered at 86.25 S, etc. and the last 88.75 N. Missing data are indicated by a value of -999.0. The first 72 records in the data set correspond to January 1987, 72 is February 1987, etc. and the last 72 records correspond to December 1995. The total length of each data set is 72*576*9=4,478,976 bytes. The following describes the content of the 2.5 degree gridded files: 1. cfr.yy - Monthly mean cloud fraction (0 - 1.0) 2. lwp.yy - Monthly mean liquid water path (1000*mm) 3. pf1.yy - Monthly mean rain fraction (0 - 1.0) using 85 GHz scattering algorithm over land, scattering/emission over ocean (ALG#1) 4. pr1.yy - Monthly rainfall (mm) using ALG#1 5. pf2.yy - Monthly mean rain fraction (0 - 1.0) using 37 GHz scattering algorithm over land, emission over ocean (ALG#2) 6. pr2.yy - Monthly rainfall (mm) using ALG#2 7. ssa.yy - Monthly mean sampling fraction (0 - 1.0) NOTES a. If the data is used in other computer environments, the data may have to be byte-swapped (e.g., byte 1 becomes byte 4, byte 2 becomes byte 3, etc.). b. The products are generated from a single satellite and contain the following: F8 satellite: July 1987 - June 1991 F11 satellite: January 1992 - May 1995 F13 satellite: June 1995 - present There are some missing data periods as noted above. The overpass times of each of these satellites is approximately 6am/6pm local time.

Purpose:

Not Available

Supplemental_Information:

Not Available

Time_Period_of_Content:

Time_Period_Information:

Range_of_Dates/Times:

Beginning_Date: 19870701

Ending_Date: Unknown

Currentness_Reference:Unknown

Status:

Progress: Complete

Maintenance_and_Update_Frequency: As needed

Spatial_Domain:

Description_of_Geographic_Extent:

Bounding_Coordinates:

West_Bounding_Coordinate: -180.0

East_Bounding_Coordinate: 180.0

North_Bounding_Coordinate: 90.0

South_Bounding_Coordinate: -90.0

Keywords:

Theme:

Theme_Keyword_Thesaurus: GCMD SCIENCE PARAMETERS

Theme_Keyword_Thesaurus: GCMD PLATFORM

Theme_Keyword_Thesaurus: GCMD INSTRUMENT

Theme_Keyword_Thesaurus: PROJECT

Theme_Keyword_Thesaurus: ANCILLARY KEYWORDS

Theme_Keyword_Thesaurus: ISO TOPIC CATEGORY

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > PRECIPITABLE WATER

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > SURFACE WINDS

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > CLOUDS > CLOUD PROPERTIES > CLOUD FREQUENCY

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > CLOUDS > CLOUD MICROPHYSICS > CLOUD LIQUID WATER/ICE

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > CLOUDS > CLOUD MICROPHYSICS > CLOUD PRECIPITABLE WATER

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > LIQUID WATER EQUIVALENT

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > PRECIPITATION AMOUNT

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > PRECIPITATION RATE

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > RAIN

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > CRYOSPHERE > SEA ICE > SEA ICE CONCENTRATION > ICE COMPACTNESS

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > CRYOSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > SNOW COVER

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > SNOW COVER

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN WINDS > SURFACE WINDS

Theme_Keyword: EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > SEA ICE > SEA ICE CONCENTRATION

Theme_Keyword: DMSP 5D-2/F10 > DEFENSE METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE PROGRAM-F10

Theme_Keyword: DMSP 5D-2/F11 > DEFENSE METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE PROGRAM-F11

Theme_Keyword: DMSP 5D-2/F12 > DEFENSE METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE PROGRAM-F12

Theme_Keyword: DMSP 5D-2/F13 > DEFENSE METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE PROGRAM-F13

Theme_Keyword: DMSP 5D-2/F8 > DEFENSE METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE PROGRAM-F8

Theme_Keyword: SSMI > SPECIAL SENSOR MICROWAVE/IMAGER

Theme_Keyword: ESIP > EARTH SCIENCE INFORMATION PARTNERS PROGRAM

Theme_Keyword: Climate Evaluation

Theme_Keyword: Cloud Liquid Water

Theme_Keyword: Grid Data

Theme_Keyword: Monthly Data

Theme_Keyword: Ocean Surface Wind Speed

Theme_Keyword: Sea-ice Cover

Theme_Keyword: Snow Cover

Theme_Keyword: Total Precipitable Water

Theme_Keyword: Weather Forecasting

Theme_Keyword: Tems

Theme_Keyword: Gtos

Theme_Keyword: G3os/

Theme_Keyword: CLIMATOLOGY/METEOROLOGY/ATMOSPHERE

Theme_Keyword: GEOSCIENTIFIC INFORMATION

Theme_Keyword: INLAND WATERS

Theme_Keyword: OCEANS

Place:

Place_Keyword_Thesaurus: GCMD

Place_Keyword: GEOGRAPHIC REGION > GLOBAL

Place_Keyword: VERTICAL LOCATION > BOUNDARY LAYER

Place_Keyword: VERTICAL LOCATION > SEA SURFACE

Place_Keyword: VERTICAL LOCATION > TROPOSPHERE

Temporal:

Temporal_Keyword_Thesaurus: GCMD

Temporal_Keyword: Monthly

Temporal_Keyword: Monthly - < Annual

Access_Constraints: Not Available

Use_Constraints:

Not Available

Point_of_Contact:

Contact_Information:

Contact_Person_Primary:

Contact_Person: RALPH FERRARO

Contact_Position: INVESTIGATOR

Contact_Address:

Address_Type: Mailing and Physical Address

Address: ESSIC/CICS

Address: 2207 Computer and Space Sciences Building

Address: University of Maryland

City: College Park

State_or_Province: MD

Country: USA

Contact_Electronic_Mail_Address: Ralph.Ferraro@noaa.gov

Data_Quality_Information:

Attribute_Accuracy:

Attribute_Accuracy_Report:

Problem Areas a. The 2.5 degree pr2 and pf2 products have artifacts along coastlines and the sea-ice boundary. These are due to the larger footprint sizes of the lower frequency channels (e.g., 19 GHz) used in the retrievals. b. The 1 degree rainfall product does not make a distinction between "zero" rain and "indeterminate" rain (due to snow and ice cover), which is indicated as zero rain. It is done within the 2.5 degree products.

Logical_Consistency_Report:

Not Available

Completeness_Report:

Not Available

Lineage:

Process_Step:

Process_Description:

Not Available

Process_Date: Unknown

Spatial_Reference_Information:

Distribution_Information:

Distributor:

Contact_Information:

Contact_Organization_Primary:

Contact_Organization: DOC/NOAA/NESDIS/NCDC > National Climatic Data Center, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce

Contact_Person: NCDC CUSTOMER SERVICE

Contact_Position: DATA CENTER CONTACT

Contact_Address:

Address_Type: Mailing and Physical Address

Address: 151 Patton Avenue, Room 120

City: Asheville

State_or_Province: NC

Postal_Code: 28801-5001

Country: USA

Contact_Voice_Telephone: 828-271-4800

Contact_Facsimile_Telephone: 828-271-4876

Contact_Electronic_Mail_Address: ncdc.orders@noaa.gov

Resource_Description: RALPH_SSMI

Distribution_Liability:

Not Available

Standard_Order_Process:

Digital_Form:

Digital_Transfer_Information:

Digital_Transfer_Option:

Online_Option:

Computer_Contact_Information:

Network_Address:

Network_Resource_Name:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/

Access_Instructions:

DATA CENTER URL

Digital_Transfer_Option:

Online_Option:

Computer_Contact_Information:

Network_Address:

Network_Resource_Name:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/satellite/ssmi/ssmipro...

Access_Instructions:

Access the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) Monthly Data Products from NCDC. Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) Monthly Data Products from NCDC

Fees: Not Available

Metadata_Reference_Information:

Metadata_Date:

Metadata_Review_Date: 20110721

Metadata_Contact:

Contact_Information:

Contact_Person_Primary:

Contact_Person: SCOTT A. RITZ

Contact_Position: DIF AUTHOR

Contact_Address:

Address_Type: Mailing and Physical Address

Address: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Address: Global Change Master Directory

City: Greenbelt

State_or_Province: Maryland

Postal_Code: 20771

Country: USA

Contact_Voice_Telephone: 301-614-5126

Contact_Facsimile_Telephone: 301-614-5268

Contact_Electronic_Mail_Address: Scott.A.Ritz@nasa.gov

Metadata_Standard_Name: FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata

Metadata_Standard_Version: FGDC-STD-001-1998

Metadata_Time_Convention: local time