International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project C2 dataset (ISCCP-C2)

General Info

Title:	International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project C2 dataset (ISCCP-C2)
Type:	Data Entity
Sub-Type:	Measurement
Abbreviation:	isccp_c2
Publication State:	published
The publication state of this metadata: 'old' - for redundant records; 'working' - for new/in progress records; 'published' - for records approaching maturity, which may still change, but should be available via the discovery services; and 'Published' for mature records that are unlikely to change and should be available via the discovery services.

URI:	http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/view/badc.nerc.ac.uk__ATOM__dataent_ISCCP

Summary
A brief description of the data.

Global monthly cloud products as produced for the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. The data on this CD-ROM are the ISCCP Stage C2 data (ISCCP-C2), at 280 km spatial resolution. There are 72 variables contained within the dataset, which are available at monthly and three-hourly monthly resolution. The data available at the time of publication begin in July 1983 and extend through December 1990. This dataset is public.

Content
The actual data being described by this document. NB, in the case of data granules, this content may just be a reference to an ingested CSML or CDML file.

Introduction

The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) is based at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. ISCCP is sponsored by the World Climate Research Programme for the purpose of "collecting and analyzing satellite radiance measurements to infer the global distribution of cloud radiative properties and their diurnal and seasonal variations".

Data are collected from a suite of weather satellites operated by several nations. Data collection began on 1 July 1983 and ended on 30 September 2001. The resulting datasets and analysis products are being used to improve understanding and modeling of the role of clouds in climate, with the primary focus being the elucidation of the effects of clouds on the radiation balance. These data can also used to support many other cloud studies, including understanding of the hydrological cycle.

This CD-ROM contains the global monthly cloud products (ISCCP-C2), at 280 km spatial resolution. They are derived from monthly averages of data taken with three-hour resolution. The products include monthly averages of calibrated radiances, cloud detection results, and cloud and surface properties from radiative analysis. There are 72 variables contained within the data set. The data available at the time of publication begin in July 1983 and extend through December 1990. Software to read the data is also provided.

Data Access

Users are requested to acknowledge the appropriate reference paper, Olsen and Rossow, in any publication using ISCCP-C2 data. ISCCP data and software are publicly available.

The data are held on CD-ROM at the BADC and can be made available for browsing purposes. If you want to use the data in earnest you should order a copy of the CD from one of the contact addresses listed below.

Data availability and file format

The archive on disk is divided in three major directories:

The DATA directory contains the data.
The DOCUMENT directory contains the documentation.
The SOFTWARE directory contains the source code and a compiled version of the read software.

README files in each directory offer more information about their contents.

The data files (FILE006.DAT-FILE113.DAT) are written as one-byte binary integers as described in the Data Directory Documentation.

The data files are available in HDF format, and the HDF Group provides a variety of tools to assist in viewing, analyzing, and displaying HDF formatted data files.

Additional data, related to ISCCP, may also be transferred directly from GISS using the anonymous FTP site.

Documentation, Links to further information and references

The documentation on the CD-ROM has been extracted and indexed and made available through this WWW interface. This gives an outline of the project and a description of the data set and processing.

Also from the ISCCP home page at GISS, general information about cloud climatology can be found.

There are a number of sites on the World Wide Web which hold information about the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project Data.

The ISCCP homepage can be found at the Goddard Institute for Space studies or GISS.

The BADC has three ISCCP datasets available:

The ISCCP C2 contains climatological summary product data as described on this page.
The ISCCP D1 contains gridded cloud product data.
The ISCCP D2 contains climatological summary product data (revised algorithm).

There are other datasets available, see the ISCCP page for details.

In addition, the Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) describes the ISCCP-C2 Monthly Cloud Products available on CD-ROM (using the keyword isccp-c2) and other related ISCCP data.

The Langley Atmospheric Sciences Data Center also has information about the ISCCP datasets.

A list of references has been extracted from the CD-Rom.

Citation

International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP), Goddard Institute for Space Studies, [Rossow, W.B.]. International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project C2 dataset (ISCCP-C2), [Internet]. NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre, 2002-, Date of citation. Available from http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/view/badc.nerc.ac.uk__ATOM__dataent_ISCCP .

Who to contact

If you would like to obtain a copy of the CD-ROM you should contact the User Services Office at Langley DAAC.
If you wish to obtain access to other ISCCP data sets, you should contact Doug Ross at the Official ISCCP Archive (data on tape).
General queries about these pages or browsing the data should be directed to the BADC support line.

Lineage
Summary of the origins of the dataset, e.g.: "Dataset produced from NASA MODIS instrument on Terra and collected at the University of York's groundstation 1999-2003 and a copy provided to NEODC in June 2007".

CD-ROM was published in the 1990's. CEDA-BADC acquired a copy of the CD-ROM and later uploaded its content into the BADC archive for online browsing.

Quality Statement
Description of the relative quality of the dataset.

As per documentation included on the CD-ROM.

Author
The principal author of the actual underlying data. Only one author can be specified per atom; if there are multiple authors, these should be specified as 'contributors'. NB, an atom MUST have an author specified.

Name	email
ISCCP for the World Climate Research Programme

Online References
Online references with a specific relationship to the data being described here. NB, if links are supplied they must be valid and include the transport protocol - e.g. 'http://blah.co.uk'. Also, note, three online references can be added at once; after these are added a further three may be specified - and so on.

Relation	Title
Download	ISCCP-C2 Data Directory
Download	ISCCP-C2 Document Directory
Logo	ISCCP Logo
Documentation	BADC Doc: ISCCP-C2 List of variables
Documentation	ISCCP Homepage
Documentation	BADC Doc: ISCCP-C2 References

Parent Data Entity
Define the parent of this record. There should probably only be one parent, but this is not enforced.

No data specified at present

Sub Data Entities
Lists all entities which have the current entity as their parent.

None

Associated Deployments

Parameters - summary

CLOUDTOPTEMPERATURE	CLOUDS	ATMOSPHERE	EARTH SCIENCE
NULL	CLOUDPRECIPITABLEWATER	TEMPERATURE	AIRTEMPERATURE
ATMOSPHERICTEMPERATURE	SURFACEAIRTEMPERATURE	CLOUDTOPPRESSURE	SNOWCOVER
ICE	SNOW	CRYOSPHERE	REFLECTANCE
ATMOSPHERICRADIATION	ATMOSPHERICPRESSURE	THICKNESS	OPTICALDEPTH
TOTALCLOUDCOVER	FREQUENCY	CLOUDAMOUNT	CLOUDOPTICALDEPTH

Parameters - details
Parameters to describe the data - with vocab URL and term IDs for further classification. Note, three parameters can be added at once; after these are added a further three may be specified - and so on.

Label	Vocab Term URL	Vocab Term ID
CLOUDTOPTEMPERATURE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
CLOUDS	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P141	NULL
ATMOSPHERE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P131	NULL
EARTH SCIENCE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P111	GCAT0001
NULL	general_units	0
CLOUDPRECIPITABLEWATER	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
TEMPERATURE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
AIRTEMPERATURE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
ATMOSPHERICTEMPERATURE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P141	NULL
SURFACEAIRTEMPERATURE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
CLOUDTOPPRESSURE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
SNOWCOVER	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
ICE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
SNOW	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P141	NULL
CRYOSPHERE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P131	NULL
REFLECTANCE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
ATMOSPHERICRADIATION	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P141	NULL
ATMOSPHERICPRESSURE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P141	NULL
THICKNESS	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
OPTICALDEPTH	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
TOTALCLOUDCOVER	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
FREQUENCY	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
CLOUDAMOUNT	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
CLOUDOPTICALDEPTH	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL

Data Coverage
Summary of the temporal and spatial data coverage for the data.

Spatial coverage
Max Y: 90.0
Min X: -180.0	Max X 180.0
Min Y -90.0

Temporal coverage
Start Date:	1983-07-01
End Date:	1990-12-31

Spatial resolution

No spatial resoultion information available.

Vertical extent

No vertical extent information available.

Responsible Parties
Parties responsible for the metadata - e.g. data curator. Responsible parties can have a role specified to make their function clearer. Multiple responsible parties can be specified.

Role	Name	URI
Data Curator	badc.nerc.ac.uk	http://badc.nerc.ac.uk

Other Info
Other miscellaneous information. Note, update frequency relates to the update frequency of the underlying data, not the metadata.

Dataset language

English

Update frequency

notPlanned

Links and Services
	Downloadable XML version of this record

Not all information in this record may be rendered in this view. Please see the XML version for complete content

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