Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 8
Atmospheric Temperature Climate Data
Records from Satellite Microwave Sounders
Cheng-Zhi Zou
Abstract This chapter reviews the simultaneous nadir overpass (SNO) method to
remove time-varying inter-satellite biases at the swath level for developing a well-
inter-calibrated Level-1c radiance fundamental climate data record (FCDR) from
the microwave sounding unit (MSU) and advanced MSU observations onboard
historical NOAA polar-orbiting satellite series. The SNO method has effectively
minimized scene temperature-dependent radiance biases and solar heating-related
instrument temperature variability in the radiances,resultinginglobalmeaninter-
satellite biases of only 0.05-0.1 K. Twenty years of the SNO-calibrated Level-1c
radiances had been assimilated into the NCEP Climate Forecast System Reana-
lysis (CFSR) and NASA Modern Era Retrospective analysis for Research and
Applications (MERRA) reanalysis, yielding much consistent bias correction
patterns across different satellites compared to those using prelaunch-calibrated
radiances.
The SNO-calibrated radiances were further used to generate the NOAA Center
for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) version of deep-layer atmospheric
temperature climate data record. The chapter reviews various residual bias correc-
tion algorithms for developing the STAR layer temperature time series, including
antenna pattern correction, limb adjustment, diurnal drift correction, geo-location-
dependent bias removal, and channel frequency difference between MSU and
AMSU. With these adjustments, well-merged atmospheric temperature time series
were generated for climate change monitoring and research.
Keywords Simultaneous nadir overpass ￿ Inter-satellite calibration ￿ Microwave
sounding unit ￿ Residual bias correction ￿ Atmospheric temperature climate data
record ￿ Long-term atmospheric temperature trends
Search WWH ::




Custom Search