ISCCP Radiative Flux Data Monthly Mean Maps

The upwelling and downwelling, shortwave and longwave radiative fluxes has been calculated at the top of the atmosphere, in the atmosphere, and at the surface using a complete radiative transfer model from the GISS GCM (revised) with improved observations of the physical properties of the surface, atmosphere, and clouds based on the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) data sets. Results (called the FD datasets) are obtained every three hours over the whole globe on a 280 km equal-area (EQ) global grid covering the time period July 1983 through December 2009.

Monthly means of selected FD variables are available here for the period July 1983 to December 2009 and may be downloaded to your local disk. Variables are net fluxes (difference of upward and downward fluxes) with positive values indicating energy input or heating and negative values indicating energy loss or cooling. Shortwave (SW) fluxes are for wavelengths from 0.2 to 5 microns and longwave (LW) fluxes are for wavelengths from 5 to 200 microns. Even though the wavelength ranges overlap, radiation in SW comes solely from the sun and in LW comes solely from Earth. To download the dataset and a README file click here.

The full FD dataset (124 Mbytes per datamonth) contains these fluxes for full, clear and overcast (cloudy) sky, along with the input data used in the flux calculations. The ISCCP FD TOA and FD SRF data sets are now available via anonymous ftp. Note that a new version 0.10 for the year 2004 has been placed on 2007 September 18 in the anonymous ftp site for the 5 FD data sets. See the ISCCP data product description page for more details. Additionally, the complete FD dataset is also available upon request. Contact Dr. William B. Rossow or Dr. Yuanchong Zhang for further information (see announcement).

References

Han, Q.-Y., W.B. Rossow, and A.A. Lacis, 1994. Near-global survey of effective cloud droplet radii in liquid water clouds using ISCCP data. J. Climate, 7, 465-497. (Read abstract.)

Han, Q., W.B. Rossow, J. Chou, K-S. Kuo, and R.M. Welch, 1999. The effects of aspect ratio and surface roughness on satellite retrievals of ice-cloud properties. J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Trans., 63, 559-583. (Read abstract.)

Wang, J., W.B. Rossow, and Y-C Zhang, 2000. Cloud vertical structure and its variations from a 20-year global rawinsonde data set. J. Climate, 13, 3041-3056. (Read abstract.)

Zhang, Y-C., W.B. Rossow, A.A. Lacis, V. Oinas, and M.I. Mishchenko, 2004. Calculation of radiative fluxes from the surface to top of atmosphere based on ISCCP and other global data sets: Refinements of the radiative transfer model and the input data. J. Geophys. Res., 109, (27 pp). Download PDF document and Auxiliary Material files (MS Word format).

Rossow, W.B., Y-C. Zhang and J-H. Wang (2005), A statistical model of cloud vertical structure based on reconciling cloud layer amounts inferred from satellites and radiosonde humidity profiles. J. Climate, 18, 3587-3605. Download PDF document

Zhang, Y., W. B. Rossow, and P. W. Stackhouse Jr. (2006), Comparison of different global information sources used in surface radiative flux calculation: Radiative properties of the near-surface atmosphere, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D13106, doi:10.1029/2005JD006873. Download PDF document

Zhang, Y., W. B. Rossow, and P. W. Stackhouse, Jr. (2007), Comparison of different global information sources used in surface radiative flux calculation: Radiative properties of the surface, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D01102, doi:10.1029/2005JD007008. Download PDF document

Zhang, Y., W. B. Rossow, P. Stackhouse, Jr., A. Romanou, and B. A. Wielicki (2007), Decadal variations of global energy and ocean heat budget and meridional energy transports inferred from recent global data sets,J. Geophys. Res., 112, D22101, doi:10.1029/2007JD008435. Download PDF document