Obs4MIPs: Monthly-mean diurnal cycle of top of atmosphere outgoing longwave radiation from the GERB instrument (GERB-HR-ED01-1-1 rlut 1hrCM), v20231221

This dataset contains top of atmosphere (TOA) outgoing longwave radiation from the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instrument on board the Meteosat-9 geostationary satellite, for the period from May 2007 until December 2012. In this dataset (labelled 'GERB-HR-ED01-1-1 rlut 1hrCM'), the data provided consist of monthly-mean diurnal cycles, with each day resolved into 1-hour means. Data are only available for eight months of each year (January, February, May, June, July, August, November and December), due to operational constraints of the GERB instrument.

This is version 1.1 of the product and contains significant improvements over the original version. These improvements include lower estimated uncertainties owing to missing data having been filled where possible and subsequently a greater availability of data within the period provided. Users are strongly encouraged to use this latest version of the products.

It has been produced in Obs4MIPs (Observations for Model Intercomparisons Project) format, as part of an activity to increase the use of GERB satellite observational data for the modelling and model analysis communities. This is not currently a standard GERB satellite instrument product, but does represent an effort on behalf of the GERB project team to identify a product that is appropriate for routine model evaluation. The data have been reprocessed and reformatted, utilising additional data sources where necessary, to create a product primarily intended for comparison with climate model output.