• Data Availability
• Correction To Data Products
• Radiance Calibration
• Spectral Responses
• Changes To Software
• Others

What's New On Data Availability

• 06/15/09: ISCCP D-level data products, including DX, D1, and D2, and ISCCP B3,BT data, are now available through June 2008. All products are available at the archive centers.
• 08/28/08: ISCCP D-level data products, including DX, D1, and D2, and ISCCP BT data, are now available through June 2007. All products are available at the archive centers.
• 02/29/08: A new study, the MAP Climatology of Mid-Latitude Storminess, is now available, as well as the Storminess Attribution Software.
• 09/18/07: A new version of the ISCCP FD flux datasets for 2004 has been placed in the anonymous ftp site. Version 0.10 for the year 2004 was placed on 2007 September 18, and can be downloaded from the FLUX ftp directory.
• 08/28/07: ISCCP D-level data products, including DX, D1, and D2, and ISCCP BT data, are now available through June 2006. All products are available at the archive centers.
• 06/02/06: ISCCP D-level data products, including DX, D1, and D2, and ISCCP BT data, are now available through June 2005. All products are available at the archive centers.
• 01/26/06: The complete ISCCP DX data is now available at NOAA/NESDIS/NCDC via anonymous ftp through ftp://eclipse.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/isccp/dx. The user is advised to check the ISCCP Data Set Version page in order to download the most current DX data.
• 10/27/05: Studies from the Tropical Weather States from the ISCCP D1 data set, cluster analysis results and software are now available in our website.
• 10/11/05: The ISCCP Deep Convecting Tracking Database has been updated and now contains data covering the period July 1983 - November 2004.
• 08/08/05: ISCCP D2 data for the period October 2001 and beyond has been revised and a replacement version 0 has been delivered to the archive centers.
  ISCCP DX data for NOAA-16 and D1, D2 datasets beyond April 2003 have been revised and version 1 was delivered to the appropriate centers.
• 06/24/05: New ISCCP D2 data for the period October 2001 through December 2004 will be delivered and should be available by late next week.
• 06/16/05: ISCCP D2 data and/or plots beyond September 2001 are currently under revision. If you have downloaded any plots/data that include D2 data past September 2001 you should not use them.
• 02/17/05: The ISCCP Deep Convective Tracking Database has been updated and now contains data for the period of July 1983 - August 2001.
• 02/16/05: The ISCCP FD TOA and FD SRF data sets are now available via anonymous ftp. See the ISCCP data product description page for more details.
• 10/27/04: A climatology of satellite sea surface temperature data has been added to the section Surface Climatology. These data include the ISCCP DX ICSTMP variable, the NOAA/NASA AVHRR Oceans Pathfinder SST data set, weekly data from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) radiometer, and Reynold's NOAA Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature Analysis weekly data set.
• 03/26/04: ISCCP BT data covering the period 1983 through Sept. 2001 is now available in our ftp site by individual satellite.
• 01/13/04: The ISCCP Deep Convective Tracking Database is available for the period Jan. 1998 - Aug. 2001 through the ISCCP Convection Colocator Web pages.
• 10/30/02: Updated Radiative Flux browse data page with ISCCP cloud datasets.
• 10/22/02: Basic cloud cover statistics based on surface weather observations (SOBS) are now available in our ISCCP web site.
• 03/28/02: The full ISCCP D2 dataset is now available for each month-year from the ISCCP anonymous ftp site in the directory /pub/data/D2Tars. This dataset includes the D2 monthly mean files as well as the monthly-hourly mean files that describe the diurnal cycle.
• 11/20/01: The ScaRaB-ISCCP Joint Analysis pages have been added to our website. This joint analysis produces the first dataset that captures both the SW and LW radiative fluxes and also the associated radiative properties of clouds and Earth surface (in the same format as the regular ISCCP Pixel Level Cloud Product) in identical field-of-view.
• 10/10/01: A climatology of selected cloud particle size parameters included in the ISCCP-D1 dataset has been added to Cloud Data & Products. The parameters included are effective liquid water droplet radius (microns) and effective ice crystal particle radius (microns).
• 09/24/01: A climatology of selected surface parameters included in the ISCCP-D2 dataset has been added to Related Data & Products. These parameters include ice/snow cover fraction, surface skin temperature, narrowband infrared emissivity (10 - 11 microns wavelength), broadband infrared emissivity (5 - 200 microns wavelength), surface microwave emissivity, and total surface albedo.
• 09/18/01: All ISCCP data are now available through December 1998.
• 07/20/01: ISCCP B3 data is now available through December 1998, and ISCCP D data is available through December 1996.
• 06/21/01: A climatology of selected atmospheric parameters included in the ISCCP-D2 dataset has been added to Related Data & Products. The parameters are total precipitable water, total ozone abundance, atmospheric temperature at the 500 mb level, and the tropopause temperature and pressure.
• 06/21/01: A climatology has been added to Cloud Data & Products consisting of various parameters that can be used in weather and climate models to account for the effects of mesoscale (< 300 km) cloud optical thickness and emissivity variations on radiative fluxes. Also, the mesoscale variability of cloud top temperature is provided. The average bias in scene (cloud fraction weighted) albedo and emissivity is also given to illustrate the magnitude of the mesoscale inhomogeneity effects on top of atmosphere radiation budget.
• 05/10/01: Information on the missing GOES-7 visible data has been posted to the Known and Fixed Data Errors page.
• 09/16/98: A new version of D1 for February 1993 is now being shipped to the archives that includes Meteosat-3 in the GOES-EAST position.
• 07/11/97: Added browse data and images for D2 1989
• 10/07/96: 1993 DX/D1 data for TOGA/COARE region is now available for on-line viewing and/or downloading
• 08/06/96: D2 cloud types added to on-line browse data available for on-line viewing and/or downloading.
• 05/09/96: Updated D2 browse data with new version (corrected snow/ice problem)
• 02/17/96: D2 sample data and browse images now available for viewing or downloading

Back to Announcements Page | Back to Top of Page

What's New On Correction To Data Products

• 07/10/07: Version 2 of ISCCP D1 and D2 for the period 200410-200412 has been generated. The difference between version 1 and 2 of both sets should be restricted over the sea-ice pixels: Version 1 used a DX that did not have sea-ice flag set correctly (see entry below), and therefore the cloud detection over those pixels is biased. Version 2 uses the corrected DX that has sea-ice flag present.
• 07/05/07: New versions of ISCCP DX for the period 200410-200412, NOA-17 v1, and NOA-16 v2, have been released. The older versions had sea-ice flag filled with 0 instead of 0,1,2 and 3 for water pixels. The new version corrects this problem.
• 03/02/07: ISCCP B3 MTS-1 satellite data for 200511-200606, version 1 was replaced: The on-planet DAY time flag (PLANFL in b3read) was set to 1 instead of 0.
• 06/26/06: A tape writing error corrupted some of the Nov. 1997 NOAA-14 DX data being archived to tape. The files do not contain viable data, and would not be capable of being read by DXREAD software. This affected all of the N and S sector files (north and south polar areas) and some of the F sector files (a total of 542 of 1386 files for this month). This did not affect the creation and archiving of the D1 and D2 datasets.
• 06/26/06: An error occurred in creating the BT tables for the additional channels of data. This affects data for MET-7 only, for the period 199806-200110. Since these channels are not used in the ISCCP algorithm, this did not affect the D1 or D2 datasets. Thanks to Gary Robinson of NERC Environmental Systems Science Centre for notifying us of the problem.
• 03/10/06: An error in BT data for MET-5 for normal and absolute radiance for thermal IR has been found. This affects data for the period 1998 Jul. through 2005 Dec. An error in the code created BT files with table 2 and 3 (normal and absolute radiance) for the thermal channels to be set to 0 (zero). This error did not affect D1 or D2 datasets.
• 03/06/06: ISCCP BT data, version 1, for the satellites GMS-5 (200301-200305) and GOE-9 (200305-200312) has been corrected. Due to a bug in the code the BT files for these 2 satellites for 2003 are incorrect for the images where the visible channel is not present. In this case the tables for the last channel (11.5 microns, channel 4) are missing. The new replacement version corrects this. Pertinent BT data has been delivered to the archive centers and can also be found in our BT ftp site.
• 08/08/05: ISCCP D2 data for the period October 2001 and beyond has been revised and a replacement version 0 has been delivered to the archive centers.
  ISCCP DX data for NOAA-16 and D1, D2 datasets beyond April 2003 have been revised and version 1 was delivered to the appropriate centers.
• 07/07/05: ISCCP DX data for NOAA-16 and D1, D2 beyond April 2003 are currently under revision. The software did not catch the transition from AVHRR 3a/3b channel configuration to 3b only (3.7 microns) therefore the cloud amount for this satellite over POLAR REGIONS ONLY in day time is overestimated (beyond April 2003 only). All other DX is correct as shipped.
• 06/16/05: ISCCP D2 data and/or plots beyond September 2001 are currently under revision. If you have downloaded any plots/data prior to this date that include D2 data past September 2001 you should not use them.
• 10/27/04: A processing error has been found which affects D2 cloud climatology anomaly analysis. The pertaining plots and data will be replaced and made available in our website, sections Data Analysis Part 1, Figure 1 and cloud type browse section Part 7.
• 01/26/04: DX Snow/Ice maps covering the period Jan. 1998 - Sep. 2001 were made incorrectly in the northern hemisphere. The original problem only affected the land areas in the northern hemisphere. The ISCCP DX/D1/D2 data products were reprocessed during October, November, and December 2003.
• 09/12/01: D data for 1995-1997 will be replaced to decrease visible calibration by 5%.
• 04/30/01: The Known and Fixed Data Errors page has been updated to document errors in cloud top temperature/pressure (ISCCP D-series dataset) and monthly-mean atmospheric temperature profiles, as well as to document the change to daily atmospheric temperature profiles in the daily TOVS files.
• 09/16/98: A processing error has been found which affects some DX and all D1/D2 for September 1988 through March 1989. All data has now been replaced.
• 01/31/97: Data errors page updated to document spurious sea ice reports, flipped North Polar DX array indices, and spurious land pixels in METEOSAT DX.
• 08/15/96: Correction pages for B3 radiance document and the D-data document have been posted.
• 06/07/96: Incorrect precipitable water amounts and surface temperatures added to "Known and Fixed Data Errors" page.
• 03/22/96: Known and Fixed Data Errors is a new page that will be updated as necessary.

Back to Announcements Page | Back to Top of Page

What's New On Radiance Calibration

• 02/18/02: Radiance calibrations are now available through September 2001. Values are final through September 1999.
• 09/18/01: Calibrations are available through December 2000; values are final through 1998.
• 05/10/01: The error in normalized calibration of GOES-8/9 water vapor channel has now been posted to our Known and Fixed Data Errors page.
• 01/15/99: The recalibration has been completed. Shipment to the DAAC will commence shortly.
• 11/04/98: All BT released (with the exception of NOAA-12) for the period of September 1994 and forward is being recalibrated to correct an error on the visible channel. We hope to release the recalibrated data by the end of the calendar year.
• 09/03/97: New radiance calibration paper on-line.
• 06/18/97: 1993 paper on normalization and calibration of geostationary satellites (540 Kbytes Encapsulated PostScript (25 pages) UNIX compressed) is available for downloading.
• 08/05/96: 1996 revision of Description of Reduced Resolution Radiance Data 163 pp. (787 Kbytes Encapsulated PostScript, UNIX compressed)
• 04/18/96: Description of Reduced Resolution Radiance Data 150 pp. (934 Kbytes Encapsulated PostScript, UNIX compressed)

Back to Announcements Page | Back to Top of Page

What's New On Spectral Responses

• 09/16/98: Spectral response functions are now available for meteosat 6 & 7.
• 08/25/97: Corrections to response function tables in B3 document available as PostScript replacement pages.
• 08/25/97: Corrections to response function tables in Calibration document available as PostScript replacement pages.
• 10/30/96: Added section for spectral response function tables and plots.

Back to Announcements Page | Back to Top of Page

What's New On Changes to Software

• 12/01/05: The following declaration in B3READ software
  INTEGER (KIND=INT4)::SCALNV/.05/,SCLNVM/.01/ was replaced by
  REAL (KIND=REAL4)::SCALNV/.05/,SCLNVM/.01/
• 08/29/05: A new version of B3read software is available that handles all satellite channels.
• 03/31/03: All of the read software was updated to contain a function (ICHAR_) to replace the fortran function ichar due to a change in the IBM version 8 xlf compiler which returns a signed integer rather than an unsigned integer as in previous versions. Thanks to Dan Shea at NCAR for pointing out the difference and providing the solution.
• 08/27/02: The DXREAD software has been updated for SGI ORIGIN users.
• 12/20/99: D2READ software updated to apply cloud type conversion factor correctly.( Liquid cloud conversion factor was being applied for all cloud types.)
• 09/16/98: New Version of B3read software.
• 02/13/98: A new version of the D2READ program is now available. The original program failed to divide BYTES 10-19 (Frequency of Mean Cloud Amount) by 2.0. Thus these bytes are frequencies ranging from 0-100% but coded as 0-200%. Users may add this to the original program on line #287 or download the new program.
• 09/05/97: New version of D1READ subroutine to correct a bug which occurs when reading D1 SUBSET files. Regular D1 files are handled correctly, only certain subset files were handled in-correctly. This version works for both.
• 02/09/96: Summary of changes between C-series and D-series algorithms

Back to Announcements Page | Back to Top of Page

Others

• 06/02/03: X-positions for NPIX pixels in the New Cloud Data Documentation, Table 2.3.4. DX Data Record Layout, was corrected (see page 29).
• 09/16/98: Version 1 BT for GOES7 has been replaced by version 2 for 8812 - 9406
• 09/16/98: Corrections and Addendum to B3 document.
• 10/11/97: Animation of DX Cloud Top Temperature and Pressure for the TOGA/COARE region during December 19-26 1993 on-line (MPEG movies).
• 08/26/97: Addendum to B3 and Calibration documents
• 08/20/97: Model simulations and ISCCP/Model comparisons for the CFRP-III storm case of GEWEX/GCSS Working Group 3.
• 08/12/97: Animations of DX Cloud Top Temperature and Pressure for the GEWEX/GCSS-WG3 CASP-II and WISP Field Studies (MPEG movies) on-line
• 07/14/97: 1992 paper on calibration of AVHRR data is available for downloading
• 07/10/97: Correction page 27 for D-data document available.
• 07/03/97: Animations of DX Cloud Top Temperature and Pressure for the GEWEX/GCSS-WG3/CFRP III Field Study (MPEG movies) on-line
• 01/31/97: Instructions for using our anonymous FTP site
• 08/13/96: ISCCP Document Corrections are PostScript page replacements for published documents to correct errors discovered post-publication.
• 06/19/96: Report on the International Workshop on Research Uses of ISCCP Datasets that was held at NASA/GISS on 15-18 April 1996 available as a Postscript document.
• 06/11/96: Added comprehensive bibliography of publications related to ISCCP
• 05/24/96: List of DX variables available from product description page
• 05/23/96: 1991 ISCCP publication on-line
• 04/29/96: 1985 ISCCP publication on-line
• 03/27/96: Corrected Table 4.3.1 (Page 91) of Documentation of New Cloud Datasets (D-data document)
• 03/22/96: 1983 ISCCP publication on-line
• 01/16/96: List of final version numbers for C-series products
• 01/19/96: Documentation of New Cloud Datasets 115 pp. (779 Kbytes Encapsulated PostScript, UNIX compressed)

Back to Announcements Page | Back to Top of Page