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New operational Interim Climate Data Records (ICDRs) of radiation and cloud properties
The CM SAF is happy to announce the availability of the new SEVIRI-based Interim Climate Data Record (ICDR) processing of cloud and radiation properties. The new ICDRs of clouds and radiation are replacing the previous operational products (EDRs) and are operational continuations of parameters from the Climate Data Records (CDRs) SARAH-2 and CLAAS-2, respectively. The products currently are provided under the status “pre-operational”.
By using the same algorithms for the generation of the new ICDRs and the corresponding CDRs, the applicability for climate monitoring is further improved. The following table gives an overview of the products available as part of the new SEVIRI ICDRs.
| ICDR | Parameter | Temporal resolution | Spatial resolution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radiation (based on SARAH-2 methods) | SIS (Surface Incoming Surface Rad.) SID (Surface Incoming Direct Rad.) DNI (Direct Normalized Irradiance) | daily means, monthly means | 0.05° x 0.05°, for monthly means diurnal cycles: 0.25°x0.25° |
| Clouds (based on CLAAS-2 methods) | CTP (Cloud Top paramters including, CTT (Cloud Top Temperature), CTH (Cloud Top Height) and CTP (Cloud Top Pressure) | daily means, monthly means, monthly mean, diurnal cycle | 0.05° x 0.05°, for monthly means diurnal cycles: 0.25°x0.25° |
The new ICDR SEVIRI products are available from beginning of 2018 onwards and will be regularly delivered with a timeliness of 5 days. The data can be ordered via the CM SAF Web User Interface under the new product group “Interim Climate Data Records” and are available in NetCDF-4 format. See the following websites for more details on the new SEVIRI ICDRs:
https://wui.cmsaf.eu/safira/action/viewICDRDetails?acronym=CLAAS_V002_ICDR
https://wui.cmsaf.eu/safira/action/viewICDRDetails?acronym=SARAH_V002_ICDR
For both, the Cloud and Radiation SEVIRI ICDR the CM SAF standard package of documentations (Algorithm Theoretical Baseline Document, Product User Manual and Validation Report) is available.
Example of usage:
As an example of usage, the monthly mean Cloud Fractional Coverage (CFC) and the Surface Incoming Solar Radiation (SIS) for May 2018 is shown in the figures below.
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| Figure 1: Cloud fraction (top left: Monthly mean, bottom right: relative anomalies) and surface downwelling shortwave radiation (top left: Monthly mean, bottom right: relative anomalies) for May 2018. |
In Europe, compared to the climatological values, May 2018 was dominated by more clouds and less solar radiation in the northern Mediterranean and by less clouds and more solar radiation in Central and Northern Europe as revealed by Figure 1. Based on the new SEVIRI ICDRs and their corresponding Climate Data Records, the time series of cloud fraction and solar radiation for the location Offenbach (Germany) is shown in Figure 2, which reveals that May 2018 was the brightest May since 2011 in Offenbach.
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| Figure 2: Time series of monthly mean cloud fraction and surface radiation in the vicinity of Offenbach, Germany for all May months from 2004 through 2018. The CDRs cover the period 2004 to 2017, continued by the ICDR from 2018 onwards. |
UP / June 2018