Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

This site is currently in beta, and your feedback is helping shape its ongoing development.

NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of SSMIS Microwave Brightness Temperatures, RSS Version 8

Published by NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce | Metadata Last Checked: February 10, 2026 | Last Modified: 2019-10-01T00:00:00.000+00:00
This dataset from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) consists of satellite swath-level brightness temperatures from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS). SSMIS measures the natural microwave emission coming from the Earth’s surface in the spectral band from 19 to 85 GHz. There are roughly 15 orbits per day per satillite with a swath width of approximately 1400 km resulting in nearly global daily coverage. SSMIS onboard the DMSP F18 satellite is the first instrument that has been calibrated to the RSS Version 8 standard. The data record covers the time period from March 2010 through the present with a one month latency. Additional DMSP satellites for RSS Version 8 will follow as they are calibrated. This Version 8 is an update to Version 7 of the same product, also archived at NOAA/NCEI. Version 8 has improved calibration for land and ice scenes. The data file format is netCDF-4 with added metadata that follow the Climate and Forecast (CF) Conventions and Attribute Convention for Dataset Discovery (ACDD).

data.gov

An official website of the GSA's Technology Transformation Services

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov