ERBE data and its validation

The Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) is to be a three-satellite complement, of which two satellites were in orbit as of October 1984. Each satellite carries scanners for earth radiance sensing and one nonscanner for solar constant sensing. Of the four channels for earth scanning, two are dedicated to limb-to-limb observations and two view a swath 1000 km wide. Comparisons are made among the channel readings, thus far producing agreement to within 1 percent. Inversion techniques which are being applied to data gathered by the sensors are checked against equivalent procedures and results with the Nimbus-7 and GOES satellites.