Terra Instruments

Features

Image from TERRA
Eyes on the Snow as Water Supplies Dwindle
Tue, 20 Sep 2022 10:30 EDT

Water departments in the West are using maps and models originally created by a NASA team to help track water.

Image from TERRA
NASA and Google Team up to Better Track Local Air Pollution
Thu, 15 Sep 2022 10:00 EDT

NASA and Google broadened an existing partnership to help local governments improve their monitoring and prediction of air quality for better decision making.

Image from TERRA
Great Air Quality for the Great Lakes Region
Mon, 11 Jul 2022 09:30 EDT

Ozone pollution assessments made for the Great Lakes region now include NASA satellite and other near-real time Earth observations.

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CERES

Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System

CERES measures reflected and emitted from the top of Earth's atmosphere.

There are two identical CERES instruments aboard Terra that measure the Earth’s total radiation budget and provide cloud property estimates that enable scientists to assess clouds’ roles in radiative fluxes from the surface to the top of the atmosphere. One CERES instrument operates in a cross-track scan mode and the other in a biaxial scan mode. The cross-track mode essentially continues the measurements of the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), while the biaxial scan mode provides new angular flux information that has improved the accuracy of angular models used to derive the Earth’s radiation balance.

Two CERES sensors also fly aboard Terra’s sister ship—Aqua.

CERES Web Site (Langley Research Center)

CERES in the News