Atmospheric Temperature Climate Data Records from Satellite Microwave Sounders - Satellite-based Applications on Climate Change - page 113

Fig. 8.5 Mean standard deviation ( σ m ) of the inter-satellite different time series for all satellite

pairs versus μ N10 in the sensitivity experiments for MSU channel 2. See Fig. 8.3 for a schematic

viewing of σ for a particular satellite pair. The μ N10 value corresponding to the minimum of σ m is

selected as the final calibration point

N6-NTN N7-N6 N8-N7 N9-N6 N10-N9 N11-N10 N12-N11 N14-N12 N14-N11

1980 1985 1990

Inter-satellite differences significantly reduced
compared to NOAA operational calibration
show in Figure 8.3

1995 2000

Fig. 8.6 Similar to Fig. 8.3 but for SNO-calibrated MSU Level-1c data, where calibration
coefficients were obtained sequentially from SNO matchups with the requirement of minimizing
global ocean-mean inter-satellite T b differences ( σ m ) for all satellite pairs

calibration are about 0.05 and 0.03 K, respectively, compared to 0.5 and 0.1 K in the
NOAA operational calibration in Fig. 8.3 .

8.2.4 Data Assimilation of Radiance FCDR in Climate
Reanalysis

The SNO-calibrated FCDR is expected to have good impact on the climate re-
analysis development since the instrument calibration errors have been minimized.
As an effort to test the performance of the inter-satellite calibration for climate
reanalysis improvement, 20 years (1987-2006) of SNO-calibrated MSU Level-1c
radiances for channels 2, 3, and 4 onboard NOAA-10 through NOAA-14 were
assimilated into the new generation of NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis