nbsp;The Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) is a key component of the Earth Observing System (EOS) program. The CERES instrument provides radiometric measurements of the Earth's atmosphere from three broadband channels. The CERES missions are a follow-on to the successful Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) mission. The CERES data products are written in HDF format.

The first CERES instrument (PFM) was launched on November 27, 1997, as part of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). Two CERES instruments (FM1 and FM2) were launched into polar orbit on board the EOS flagship Terra on December 18, 1999, and two additional CERES instruments (FM3 and FM4) were launched on board EOS Aqua on May 4, 2002.

The following images show the areal coverage for each satellite the CERES instrument(s) flies on. In particular, the images show top of atmosphere all sky longwave measurements. CERES Level 2 ES-8 and Level 3 ES-4 browse images are available from the CERES Browse Products page.