The files in this directory are the overall monthly mean files from the Global Surface and Atmospheric Radiative Fluxes, also called the FD data set.

Make sure to do a BINARY ftp transfer.

The files are named FDAVGTTT__SSFFVVV and FDYYYYMM__SSFFVVV, where TTT and/or YYYYMM indicate the time period; SS is the spectral range (LW: Longwave, SW: Shortwave, TL: Total); FF is the flux variable (FL: Full Sky Net Flux, CD: Cloudy Sky Net Flux, CR: Clear Sky Net Flux, CE: Cloud Effect); and VVV is the spatial/vertical position (TOA: Top of the atmosphere, ATM: in the atmosphere, SRF: at the surface).

The file format is the native ISCCP format as described in the document.

There is a sample C read program also found in this directory: fdread.c
Note that if you are downloading the sample program, you will also need 
to download the ancillary files LON.BEG and LON.END in BINARY mode.