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    • IRIS/Nimbus-4 Level 1 Radiance Data V001 (IRISN4RAD) at GES DISC

    Metadata Updated: February 6, 2026

    The Nimbus-4 Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS) Level 1 Radiance Data contain thermal emissions of the Earth's atmosphere at wave numbers between 400 and 1600 cm-1, with a nominal resolution of 2.8 cm-1. The data also contain documentation information, reference calibration, average instrument temperatures, and a summary for each orbital pass. The data, originally written on IBM 360 machines, were recovered from 9-track magnetic tapes. The data are archived in their original IBM 32-bit word binary record format, and each file contains an entire day of measurements. The product contains data from April 9, 1970 (day of year 99) through Jan 31, 1971 (day of year 31).

    The IRIS instrument was designed to provide information on the vertical structure of the atmosphere and on the emissive properties of the earth's surface by measuring the surface and atmospheric radiation in the 6.25 to 25 micrometer range using a modified Michelson interferometer. IRIS viewed along the satellite track direction with a spatial resolution of 94 km at nadir. A Fourier transform was applied to the interferograms to produce thermal emmision spectra of the Earth which could be used to derive vertical profiles of temperature, water vapor, and ozone, as well as other parameters of meteorological interest. The Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS) experiment on Nimbus-4 is a follow on experiment to the Nimbus-3 IRIS experiment. The IRIS Principal Investigator was Dr. Rudolf A. Hanel.

    These data were previously archived at NASA NSSDC under the entry ID ESAD-00093 (originally 70-025A-03A).

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

    Downloads & Resources

    Dates

    Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
    Metadata Updated Date February 6, 2026

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from NASA Data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
    Metadata Updated Date February 6, 2026
    Publisher NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/GCDC/GESDISC
    Maintainer
    Identifier C1273652166-GES_DISC
    Data First Published 1970-04-09
    Language en-US
    Data Last Modified 2025-03-31
    Category Nimbus, geospatial
    Public Access Level public
    Bureau Code 026:00
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Harvest Object Id b90a9a37-c531-417a-bb05-fcbb7618cba2
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    Homepage URL https://cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov:443/search/concepts/C1273652166-GES_DISC.html
    Metadata Type geospatial
    Old Spatial -180.0 -90.0 180.0 90.0
    Program Code 026:001
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash f548d1d85840acc2985ed8f4b2c6d350f008f786468d1ac881b946365b4ca389
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 1970-04-09T00:00:00Z/1971-01-30T23:59:59.999Z

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