Nimbus-7 SMMR Pathfinder Brightness Temperatures, Version 1

The Nimbus-7 SMMR Pathfinder Brightness Temperatures data set contains global brightness temperatures in swath format (level 1b) from 25 October 1978 to 20 August 1987. The instrument obtained near-global coverage at five frequencies (6.6, 10.7, 18, 21, and 37 GHz) in both horizontal and vertical polarizations, at a constant incidence angle of 50.3 degrees, every six days. Data are stored as daily orbit files in compressed Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) and are available on FTP.

The Nimbus-7 SMMR Level 1B Pathfinder data set was created at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from a level 1A 'TAT' data set provided by the Goddard Space Flight Center (GFSC).The SMMR operated continuously from 25 Oct 1978 through 16 November 1987, at which time it began alernate-day operation.The processed level 1B SMMR data are stored as orbit files in HDF format.Each level 1B orbit file covers a time period of approximately 104.16 minutes.The file size for an uncompressed orbit file is approximately 4.3 megabytes.The total volume of the level 1B data set is approximately 70 gigabytes (compressed).