We use the clathrate hydrate trapping theory (Lunine & Stevenson 1985) and the gas drag formalism of Weidenschilling (1977) to calculate the composition of ices incorporated in the interior of Ceres. In the spirit of the work of Cyr et al. (1998), and using a time dependent solar nebula model, we show that icy solids can drift from beyond 5 AU to the present location of the asteroid and be pres...

New data products from the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES; Wielicki et al., 1996) instrument were recently released. The Single Scanner Footprint (SSF) data product combines radiation budget data from CERES with cloud property retrievals from an imager on the same platform to provide a vastly improved characterization of the state of the atmosphere. In addition, the SSF inc...

A new set of ephemerides for 15 of the largest asteroids has been produced for use in the Astronomical Almanac. The ephemerides cover the period from 1800 through 2100. The internal uncertainty in the mean longitude at epoch, 1997 December 18, ranges from for 7 Iris through for 65 Cybele, and 0A.05 0A.22 the uncertainty in the mean motion varies from per century for 4 Vesta to per century for 5...

This paper presents an overview of the CERES project. It demonstrates how algorithm improvements have lead to improved top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative flux accuracy. CERES shortwave flux anomalies are compared with those from Earthshine and ISCCP-FD. OCIS codes: (010.1310) Atmospheric scattering

[1] Using spatially and temporally collocated data sets from the Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) and Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on the Terra satellite, a new strategy is presented for studying the Shortwave Aerosol Radiative Forcing (SWARF) over the global oceans. Using collocated data, for September 2000, the global averaged optical thick...

Conventional single-layer cloud assumptions lead to erroneous results in satellite retrieved cloud properties for multilayered multiphase cloud systems. The Cloud and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) project strives to develop an exploratory multilayer cloud data product using the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. The new MODIS multilayer cloud products will be av...