EARS-VIIRS

Visible, infrared and radiometric measurements of land, atmosphere, cryosphere, and oceans

The EARS-VIIRS service collects data from the VIIRS instrument onboard the JPSS spacecrafts, operated by NASA and NOAA.

Last Updated

12 January 2022

Published on

28 April 2020

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is a scanning radiometer, which collects visible and infrared imagery and radiometric measurements of the land, atmosphere, cryosphere, and oceans. VIIRS data is used to measure cloud and aerosol properties, ocean colour, sea and land surface temperature, ice motion and temperature, fires, and the Earth's albedo.

Climatologists use VIIRS data to improve our understanding of global climate change. The NOAA JPSS pages have more details.

The provision of VIIRS data in the form of an EARS service is a logical extension of the EARS-AVHRR service, providing operational imager data with high timeliness for nowcasting applications.

EARS-VIIRS service specification

Satellites supported

Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, as shown on the tables on the Regional Data Service/EARS webpage.

Product processing

RT-STPS as provided by NASA and CSPP as provided by CIMSS, configured and run by EUMETSAT. CVIIRS as provided by EUMETSAT for compaction of data.

Product segmentation

Segments each containing one granule of observations (~85.6s).

Duplicate segments removed before dissemination.

Products via EUMETCast Europe

Currently two products*:

All 16 VIIRS M-Band channels.
The VIIRS Day/Night Band covering dusk, dawn and night time scenes, but excluding day time scenes.

Compact VIIRS SDR (Sensor Data Record) HDF5 product format containing calibrated radiances and geolocation information on tie-point grid. Geolocation to reference ellipsoid and not to terrain model. No observation thinning, lossless compression. Compact VIIRS SDR product format user guide.

CVIIRS tool

The CVIIRS tool is made available by EUMETSAT to enable users to reconstruct the original NOAA VIIRS SDR product format from the Compact VIIRS SDR.

Timeliness via EUMETCast

30 minutes, target 15 minutes.

Products via RMDCN/GTS

None.

Archived in EUMETSAT

None.

Further information

For more information on EARS-VIIRS see TD 14 - EUMETSAT Advanced Retransmission Service Technical Description

Full details on products can be found in the Product Navigator: VIIRS Regional Data Service

Other EARS services

EARS-ASCAT

EARS-ASCAT collects ASCAT instrument data from Metop passes, via a network of HRPT stations, and re-transmits Level 2 products via EUMETCast.

EARS-ATMS

EARS-ATMS collects data from the ATMS instrument on board the JPSS spacecrafts, operated by NASA and NOAA.

EARS-ATOVS

EARS-ATOVS provides the European meteorological community with sounder data covering data-sparse areas, within 30 minutes of the instrument observations.

EARS-AVHRR

EARS-AVHRR collects data from Metop and NOAA via a network of AHRPT/HRPT stations.

EARS-CrIS

The EARS-CrIS service collects data from the CrIS instrument onboard the JPSS spacecrafts, operated by NASA and NOAA.

EARS-IASI

EARS-IASI collects IASI instrument data from Metop satellite-passes via a network of HRPT stations and re-transmits Level 1c and pilot Level 2 products.

EARS-MERSI

EARS-MERSI complements the Metop and the US POES and SNPP/JPSS satellites currently covered by EARS.

EARS-MWRI

EARS-MWRI complements the Metop, POES and SNPP/JPSS satellites currently covered by EARS.

EARS-NWC

EARS-NWC provides near-real time availability of high resolution cloud products.

EARS-VASS

EARS-VASS (Vertical Atmospheric Sounding Service), complements the Metop and the US POES and SNPP/JPSS satellites currently covered by EARS.