A Ten-year Monthly Data Set of Outgoing Longwave Radiation from Nimbus-6 and Nimbus-7 Satellites

Abstract

Monthly mean outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) measurements in the form of global contour maps and coefficients of spherical-harmonic functions for each month of the 10-year period July 1975 through October 1985 have recently been completed. One data set contains three years (July 1975 to June 1978) of ?continuous? data from the wide field-of-view sensor of the Earth Radiation Budget experiment (ERB) aboard the Nimbus-6 satellite. The other data set contains seven years (November 1978 to October 1985) of ?continuous? data from the ERB experiment aboard the Nimbus-7 satellite. The OLR broadband time series could be used, for example, to study the interannual variability of OLR. An example is given of two El Niños that occurred in the 10-year timeframe.