PATMOS-x AVHRR Pathfinder Atmospheres - Extended

Map Projection



For the PATMOS-x data, we have continued the use of an equal-area projection for the gridded datasets.  This basic projection is also used in ISCCP (2.5 deg) and PATMOS-1 (1.0 deg). The baseline resolution for PATMOS-x is 0.5 degrees. With this resolution, an equal area map has 165018 grid cells.  

image of PATMOS-x cell indices


In PATMOS-x (as in PATMOS-1), the first cell is just east and north of the south pole. The cell indices increase to the east and to the north.  The last cell is therefore just west and south of the North Pole.


In general, the latitude width of each cell is constant and the longitudinal width grows with distance from the equator so that the area encompassed by each cell remains the same.  At the latitude near the poles, there are only a few cells in the latitude rows. The merits of this grid are expoused in

William B. Rossow and Leonid Garder. 1984: Selection of a Map Grid for Data Analysis and Archival. Journal of Applied Meteorology: Vol. 23, No. 8, pp. 1253–1257.