THE SCARAB EARTH RADIATION BUDGET DATASET

Following an overview of the scientific objectives and organization of the French-Russian-German Scanner for Radiation Budget (ScaRaB) proje ct, brief descriptions of the instrument, its ground calibration, and in-flight operating and calibration procedures are given. During the y ear (24 February 1994-6 March 1995) of ScaRaB Flight Model 1 operation on board Meteor-3/7, radiometer performance was generally good and we ll understood. Accuracy of the radiances is estimated to be better tha n 1% in the longwave and 2% in the shortwave domains. Data processing procedures are described and shown to be compatible with those used fo r the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Earth Rad iation Budget Experiment (ERBE) scanner data, even though time samplin g properties of the Meteor-3 orbit differ considerably from the ERBE s ystem orbits. The resulting monthly mean earth radiation budget distri butions exhibit no global bias when compared to ERBE results, but they do reveal interesting strong regional differences. The ''ERBE-like'' scientific data products are now available to the general scientific r esearch community. Prospects for combining data from ScaRaB Flight Mod el 2 (to fly on board Ressurs-1 beginning in spring 1998) with data fr om the NASA Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instr ument on board the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) are br iefly discussed.