Acronyms and Abbreviations

ACRIM

Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor

ADC

Affiliated Data Centers

AEM-2

Application Explorer Mission-2

ARB

48" Lidar Aerosol Research Branch

ARESE

ARM (Atmospheric Radiation Measurement) Enhanced Shortwave Experiment

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange

ASF

Alaska SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) Facility

ATOST

Atlantic - THORpex Observing System Test

AVHRR

Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer

CALIPSO

Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations

CAMEX

Convection And Moisture Experiment

CD

Compact Disc

CDAS

Command and Data Acquisition Station

CDDIS

Crustal Dynamics Data Information System

CDF

Common Data Format

CDIAC

Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center

CDMS

Cryospheric Data Management System

CDRC

CIESIN Data and Research Center

CERES

Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System

CIESIN

Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network

CL

Command Language

CLAMS

Chesapeake Lighthouse and Aircraft Measurements for Satellites

C-MARE

Central Mediterranean Aerosol and Radiation Experiment

cm

centimeter

COARE

Continental Ocean-Atmosphere Regional Experiment

COTS

Commercial Off The Shelf

CZCS

Coastal Zone Color Scanner

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DAAC

Distributed Active Archive Center

DADS

Data Archive and Distribution System

DIF

Directory Interchange Format

DISC

Document Imaging Systems Corporation

DOE

Department of Energy

ECA

Earth Central Angle

ECMWF

European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasting

ECS

EOSDIS Core System

EDC

EROS (Earth Resources Observing System) Data Center

EDG

EOS (Earth Observing System) Data Gateway

EOS

Earth Observing System

EOSDIS

Earth Observing System Data and Information System

EOSP

Earth Observing System Polarimeter

ERBE

Earth Radiation Budget Experiment

ERBS

Earth Radiation Budget Satellite

EROS

Earth Resources Observing System

ERS-1

Earth Remote-sensing Satellite-1

ESA

European Space Agency

ESDIS

Earth Science Data and Information System

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FIRE

First ISCCP (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project) Regional Experiment

FORTRAN

FORmula TRANslation

FOV

Field of View

FTP

File Transfer Protocol

GAC

Global Area Coverage

GB

gigabyte (10⁹)

GCDC

Global Change Data Center

GCMD

Global Change Master Directory

GEBA

Global Energy Budget Archive

GEWEX

Global Energy and Water cycle Experiment

GISS

Goddard Institute for Space Studies

GLIS

Global Land Information System

GMS

Geostationary Meteorological Satellite

GMT

Greenwich Mean Time

GOES

Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite

GPS

Global Positioning System

GSFC

Goddard Space Flight Center

GTE

Global Tropospheric Experiment

GUI

Graphical User Interface

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HALOE

Halogen Occultation Experiment

HDF

Hierarchical Data Format

HDF-EOS

Hierarchical Data Format for Earth Observing System

HIRS

High Resolution Infrared Sounder

HRPT

High Resolution Picture Transmission

HTML

Hypertext Markup Language

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

IBM

International Business Machines

ICARTT

International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation

IDL

Interactive Data Language

IEOS

International Earth Observing System

IFOV

Instantaneous Field of View

IGAC

International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Program of the IGBP

IGAP

International Global Aerosol Program

IGBP

International Geosphere - Biosphere Programme

IMS

Information Management System

IPCC

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

IR

Infrared Radiation

ISCCP

International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project

JERS-1

Japanese Earth Remote-sensing Satellite-1

JMA

Japan Meteorological Agency

JPL

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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K

Kelvin

KB

kilobyte (10³)

km

kilometer

LAC

Local Area Coverage

Landsat

Land Remote-Sensing Satellite

LaRC

Langley Research Center

LASE

Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment

LIDAR

Light Detection and Ranging Instrument

LITE

Lidar-in-space Technology Experiment

LW

Longwave radiation

m

meter

MAPS

Measurement of Atmospheric Pollution from Satellites

MAS

MODIS Airborne Simulator

MB

megabyte (10⁶)

mb

millibar

METEOSAT

Geosynchronous Meteorology Satellite (ESA)

MFOV

Medium Field of View

MIR

Multispectral Imaging Radiometer

MISR

Multi-angle Imaging Spectro-Radiometer

mm

millimeter

MODIS

Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer

MOPITT

Measurement Of Pollution In The Troposphere

mrad

microradians

ms

millisecond

MSFC

Marshall Space Flight Center

MSS

Multispectral Scanner

MSU

Microwave Sounding Unit

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NARSTO

North American Research Strategy for Tropospheric Ozone

NASA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NCAR

National Center for Atmospheric Research

NCDC

National Climatic Data Center

NCDS

NASA's Climate Data System

NCEP

National Centers for Environmental Prediction

NCSA

National Center for Supercomputing Applications

NESDIS

National Environmental Satellite, Data & Information Services

NetCDF

Network Common Data Format

NGDC

National Geophysical Data Center

Nimbus

NASA Meteorological Satellites

NMC

National Meteorological Center

NO²

Nitrogen Dioxide

NOAA

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

NODC

National Oceanographic Data Center

NODIS

NSSDC Online Data and Information Service

NODS

NASA Ocean Data System

NSIDC

National Snow and Ice Data Center

NSSDC

National Space Science Data Center

NVAP

NASA Water Vapor Project

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O³

Ozone

ORNL

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

OSTA

Office of Space and Terrestrial Applications

PB

petabyte (10¹⁵)

PGE

Product Generation Executable

PGS

Product Generation System

PLDS

Pilot Land Data System

POAM

Polar Ozone and Aerosol Measurement

PV

Precision Visuals

RGB

Red-Green-Blue

RIS

Raster Image Set

ROM

Read Only Memory

rpm

revolutions per minute

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SAGE

Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment

SAM

Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement

SAR

Synthetic Aperture Radar

SCAR-A

Smoke/Sulfates, Clouds and Radiation - America

SCAR-B

Smoke/Sulfates, Clouds and Radiation - Brazil

SDAC

Satellite Data Analysis Center

SDS

Scientific Data Set

SDSC

San Diego Supercomputer Center

SDSD

Satellite Data Services Division

Seasat

Sea Satellite

SEDAC

Socio-Economic Data and Applications Center

SGI

Silicon Graphics - Iris

SeaWiFS

Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor

SMM

Solar Maximum Mission

SMMR

Scanning Multispectral Microwave Radiometer

SMS

Synchronous Meteorological Satellite

SPDB

Science Processing Database

SPOT

Systeme Pour l'Observation de la Terre (France)

SRB

Surface Radiation Budget

SSE

Surface Solar Energy

SSM/I

Special Sensor Microwave/Imager

STS

Space Transport System

SUCCESS

SUbsonic aircraft Contrail and Clouds Effects Special Study

SUDS

Science, User and Data Services

SW

Shortwave radiation

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TARFOX

Tropospheric Aerosol Radiative Forcing Observational Experiment

TB

terabyte (10¹²)

TES

Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer

TGDDIS

Trace Gas Dynamics Data Information System

THORpex

THe Observing-system Research and predictability experiment

TIROS

Television and Infrared Operational Satellite

TM

Thematic Mapper

TOMS

Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer

TOPEX

Ocean Topography Experiment

TOVS

TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder

TRMM

Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (U.S.-Japan)

UARS

Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite

UCAR

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

um

micrometer

URL

Uniform (or Universal) Resource Locator

USGCRP

United States Global Change Research Program

USGS

United States Geological Survey

UTC

Universal Time, Coordinated

V0

Version 0

VAS

VISSR Atmospheric Sounder

VIS

Visible

VISSR

Visible and Infrared Spin-Scan Radiometer

VMM

VISSR Multiplexor/Modulator

W

Watts

WCRP

World Climate Research Program

Wetnet

Network for Distribution and Joint Analysis of SSM/I (MSFC)

WFOV

Wide Field of View

WMO

World Meteorological Organization

WWW

World Wide Web

XML

Extensible Markup Language

Suggested Reading: EOS Acronyms Glossary