CERES Single Scanner Footprint (SSF) TOA/Surface Fluxes, Clouds and Aerosols NOAA20-FM6-VIIRS Edition1C

CER_SSF_NOAA20-FM6-VIIRS_Edition1C is the NOAA-20 Single Scanner Footprint (SSF) Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) Level 2 observed Top of Atmosphere (ToA) broadband radiances and fluxes Edition1C data product. The last CERES instrument, Flight Model (FM) 6, was launched on board the Joint Polar-Orbiting Satellite System 1 (JPSS-1) satellite, now known as NOAA-20, on November 18, 2017. The data product begins May 1, 2018, and is in progress. The CERES footprint has a nominal 24-kilometer (km) resolution at nadir and a swath width of approximately 3,000 km. The product provides global coverage over a day.

The SSF granule contains instantaneous CERES FM6 Earth viewing footprints filtered radiances for the total, shortwave (SW), and longwave (LW) broadband channels and the unfiltered SW, LW (determined from the difference between total and SW), and LW channel radiances. The SW, LW, and LW-channel radiances at spacecraft altitude are converted to Top of Atmosphere (ToA) fluxes based on the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) imager-defined scene. These ToA fluxes are used to estimate surface fluxes. The VIIRS radiances are used with CERES-specific cloud masks and retrievals to provide pixel-level cloud properties, and this data is averaged over the larger CERES footprint for up to two distinct non-overlapping cloud layers. Each cloud layer has properties such as amount, height, temperature, pressure, optical depth, emissivity, phase, water path, and water particle size. Each footprint contains the VIIRS aerosol optical depth and imager radiance values. Only footprints with adequate imager coverage are included on the SSF product, much less than the full set of footprints that can be found on the CERES ERBE-like Instantaneous TOA Estimates (ES8) product.

The product is distributed in hourly network Common Data Format (NetCDF) 4 files, each containing approximately six-tenths of an orbit.

Besides providing flux observations, the SSF product can be used to understand how clouds and aerosols change the amount of radiation reflected or emitted by the Earth. A follow-on instantaneous gridded product, SSF1deg-Hour, provides similar information on a 1-degree equal area grid.

CERES is a key component of the Earth Observing System (EOS) program. The last CERES instrument, FM6, was launched on board the Joint Polar-Orbiting Satellite System 1 (JPSS-1) satellite, now known as NOAA-20, on November 18, 2017.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field	Value
Maintainer	Earthdata Forum
Last Updated	September 8, 2026, 02:08 (UTC)
Created	April 1, 2025, 15:10 (UTC)
accessLevel	public
bureauCode	{026:00}
catalog_conformsTo	https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
harvest_object_id	5efbb71c-bee0-4a87-ac4a-73f40b485a5a
harvest_source_id	b99e41c6-fe79-4c19-bbc3-9b6c8111bfac
harvest_source_title	Science Discovery Engine
identifier	10.5067/NOAA20/CERES/SSF-FM6_L2.001C
license	https://www.usa.gov/government-works
modified	2026-08-31T22:16:00Z
programCode	{026:000}
publisher	NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC
resource-type	Dataset
source_datajson_identifier	true
source_hash	f04b7c4b000f63d255def8daa1885a4aa5f8ac10f0b3d3fc088f6c00b738211f
source_schema_version	1.1
spatial	["CARTESIAN", [{"Boundary": {"Points": [{"Latitude": -90, "Longitude": -180}, {"Latitude": -90, "Longitude": 180}, {"Latitude": 90, "Longitude": 180}, {"Latitude": 90, "Longitude": -180}, {"Latitude": -90, "Longitude": -180}]}}]]
temporal	2018-05-01/2026-08-31
theme	{"Earth Science"}