The Mean Layer Temperature - NOAA CDR V5.0 is a monthly global dataset with 2.5°×2.5° grid resolution covering the period from November 1978 to present. The dataset measures mean layer atmospheric temperatures from the lower-troposphere to the lower-stratosphere. The dataset was inter-calibrated and merged from three generations of microwave sounders, MSU, AMSU-A, and ATMS, with 16 polar-orbiting satellites including TIROS-N, NOAA-6, NOAA-7, NOAA-8, NOAA-9, NOAA-10, NOAA-11, NOAA-12, NOAA-14, NOAA-15, NOAA-18, NOAA-19, MetOp-A, Aqua, SNPP, and NOAA-20. The dataset includes temperature mid-troposphere (TMT, MSU channel 2 merged with AMSU-A channel 5 and ATMS channel 6), temperature upper-troposphere (TUT, MSU channel 3 merged with AMSU-A channel 7 and ATMS channel 8), temperature lower-stratosphere (TLS, MSU channel 4 merged with AMSU-A channel 9 and ATMS channel 10), and temperature lower-troposphere (TLT, derived from combinations of TMT, TUT, and TLS). TLT, TMT, TUT, and TLS measure layer temperatures peaking roughly at 3km, 5km, 10km, and 17km, respectively, above the Earth's surface. Features in the dataset development include a use of backward merging approach, development of an observation- and semi-physically-based algorithm for diurnal drift adjustment, and removal of spurious calibration drifting errors in NOAA-15, NOAA-14, NOAA-12, and NOAA-11 through recalibration. Satellite microwave sounding observations in stable sun-synchronous orbits (Aqua, MetOp-A, SNPP, NOAA-20) were used as a reference in the backward merging process. Bias corrections and satellite recalibration have resulted in inter-consistent CDR records for reliable climate change investigation.

*Note: This dataset version has been superseded by a newer version. It is highly recommended that users access the current version. Users should only use this version for special cases, such as reproducing studies that used this version.* This dataset contains gridded daily surface reflectance and brightness temperatures derived from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensors onboard eight NOAA polar orbiting satellites: NOAA-7, -9, -11, -14, -16, -17, -18 and -19. Surface reflectance from AVHRR channels 1 and 2 (at 640 and 860 nm) are a NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR). The dataset spans from 1981 to 10 days before the present, and was processed from the AVHRR Global Area Coverage (GAC) Level 1b dataset. AVHRR GAC observations are packaged into data arrays with latitude and longitude dimensions of 3600 x 7200 covering the globe at 0.05 degree spatial resolution. This dataset is one of the Land Surface CDR products produced by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and the University of Maryland (UMD). Other Land Surface CDR products include the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR). Improvements made for Version 4 include 1) additional data from NOAA satellites extending the time period, 2) improved geolocation accuracy from use of OLE instead of TLE, 3) center of the grid is used as the reference, and 4) data value of a grid cell is computed as an average of available good observations. The dataset is in the netCDF-4 file format following ACDD and CF Conventions. The dataset is accompanied by algorithm documentation, data flow diagram and source code for the NOAA CDR Program.

This dataset contains gridded daily surface reflectance and brightness temperatures derived from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensors onboard eight NOAA polar orbiting satellites: NOAA-7, -9, -11, -14, -16, -17, -18 and -19. Surface reflectance from AVHRR channels 1 and 2 (at 640 and 860 nm) are a NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR). The dataset spans from 1981 to 10 days before the present, and was processed from the AVHRR Global Area Coverage (GAC) Level 1b dataset. AVHRR GAC observations are packaged into data arrays with latitude and longitude dimensions of 3600 x 7200 covering the globe at 0.05 degree spatial resolution. This dataset is one of the Land Surface CDR Version 5 products produced by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and the University of Maryland (UMD). Other Land Surface CDR products include the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR). Scientific improvements for Version 5 include updating to higher resolution ancillary data and more accurate approaches for BRDF correction, calibration, compositing, and QA. Version 5 also corrects the data for known errors in time, latitude, and longitude variables, as well as improves the global and variable attribute definitions. The dataset is in the netCDF-4 file format following ACDD and CF Conventions. The dataset is accompanied by algorithm documentation, data flow diagram and source code for the NOAA CDR Program.