Abstract:
The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment II (SAGE II) is a payload
installed aboard the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) that was launched
on October 5, 1984, from NASA Space Shuttle Flight 41-G. The SAGE II
instrument is a multi-channel spectral radiometer that measures the attenuation
of solar radiation at seven wavelengths as they pass through the Earth's
atmosphere during the
... spacecraft's sunrise and sunset events. In one day's
time the ERBS spacecraft encounters approximately fifteen sunrise and fifteen
sunset events. The SAGE II instrument captures solar radiation data for each
event. The data span a vertical distance from about 140 kilometers to the
horizon or a cloud top. The ground-track slew distance during data capture
varies directly with the duration of the event. Event duration will vary with
the beta angle of the event; the larger the absolute beta angle, the longer the
event will be.
This data set is Version 6.20 of the SAGE II data set. Each data file
contains aerosol, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and water vapor extinction
profiles.
The data are available in the SAGE II native binary format. This
data set is archived at the Atmospheric Sciences Data Center at
NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. 
