NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of Intersatellite Calibrated Clear-Sky HIRS Channel 12 Brightness Temperature, Version 2.6 (Version Superseded)

*Note: This dataset version has been superseded by a newer version.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 NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of Inter-Satellite Calibrated Clear-Sky High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) Channel 12 brightness temperatures contains over 30 years (1978-2013) of data. Among the twenty channels in the HIRS instrument, channel 12 measures upper tropospheric water vapor (UTWV). Multiple polar orbiting satellites in the NOAA Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) series and MetOp-A have carried HIRS instruments. Due to the independence in calibration of the individual HIRS instruments, biases exist between satellites. Examination of the intersatellite biases shows that the biases are scene brightness temperature dependent. These HIRS channel 12 measurements from the NOAA POES and MetOp-A are calibrated to a baseline satellite based on intersatellite bias correction data. The differences from the last version include that the dataset is now provided as monthly mean 2.5x2.5 degree latitude/longitude in netcdf format and the time series has been extended to the end of 2013. This CDR is key to understanding water vapor feedback climatology.