Envisat MERIS Full Resolution - Level 1 [MER_FRS_1P/ME_1_FRG] 2003-03

The MERIS Level 1 Full Resolution (FR) product contains the Top of Atmosphere (TOA) upwelling spectral radiance measures. The in-band reference irradiances for the 15 MERIS bands are computed by averaging the in-band solar irradiance of each pixel. The in-band solar irradiance of each pixel is computed by integrating the reference solar spectrum with the band-pass of each pixel. The MERIS FR Level 1 product has Sentinel 3-like format starting from the 4th reprocessing data released to users in July 2020. Each measurement and annotation data file is in NetCDF 4. The Level 1 product is composed of 22 data files: 15 files containing radiances at each band (one band per file), accompanied by the associated error estimates, and 7 annotation data files. The 15 sun spectral flux values provided in the instrument data file of the Level 1 products are the in-band reference irradiances adjusted for the Earth-sun distance at the time of measurement. The band-pass of each pixel is derived from on-ground and in-flight characterisation via an instrument model. The values "Band wavelength" and "Bandwidth" provided in the Manifest file of the Level 1b products are the averaged band-pass of each pixel over the instrument field of view. Auxiliary data are also listed in the Manifest file associated to each product. The Level 1 FR product covers the complete instrument swath. The product duration is not fixed and it can span up to the time interval of the input Level 0 (for a maximum of 20 minutes). Thus the estimated size of the Level 1 FR is dependent on the start/stop time of the acquired segment. During the Envisat mission, acquisition of MERIS Full Resolution data was subject to dedicated planning based on on-demand ordering and coverage of specific areas according to operational recommendations and considerations. See yearly and global density maps to get a better overview of the MERIS FR coverage.