Meteorological satellites

An overview is presented of the meteorological satellite programs that have been evolving from 1958 to the present, and plans for the future meteorological and environmental satellite systems that are scheduled to be placed into service in the early 1980's are reviewed. The development of the TIROS family of weather satellites, including TIROS, ESSA, ITOS/NOAA, and the present TIROS-N (the third generation operational system) is summarized. The contribution of the Nimbus and ATS technology satellites to the development of the operational-orbiting and geostationary satellites is discussed. Included are descriptions of both the TIROS-N and the DMSP payloads currently under development to assure a continued and orderly growth of these systems into the 1980's

The status of environmental satellites and availability of their data products

The latest available information about the status of unclassified environmental satellite (flown by the United States) and their data products is presented. The type of environmental satellites discussed include unmanned earth resource and meteorological satellites, and manned satellites which can act as a combination platform for instruments. The capabilities and data products of projected satellites are discussed along with those of currently operating systems

VAS Demonstration Sounding Workshop: The Proceedings of a satellite sounding workshop

Retrieval techniques that yield satellite derived temperature and moisture profiles are considered, with emphasis on TIROS-N and VISSR atmospheric sounder measurements. Topics covered include operational sounding, colocation concepts, correcting cloud errors, and the First GARP Global Experiment

Radiometric Correction of Observations from Microwave Humidity Sounders

The Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-B (AMSU-B) and Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS) are total power microwave radiometers operating at frequencies near the water vapor absorption line at 183 GHz. The measurements of these instruments are crucial for deriving a variety of climate and hydrological products such as water vapor, precipitation, and ice cloud parameters. However, these measurements are subject to several errors that can be classified into radiometric and geometric errors. The aim of this study is to quantify and correct the radiometric errors in these observations through intercalibration. Since the bias in the calibration of microwave instruments changes with scene temperature, a two-point intercalibration correction scheme was developed based on averages of measurements over the tropical oceans and nighttime polar regions. The intercalibration coefficients were calculated on a monthly basis using measurements averaged over each specified region and each orbit, then interpolated to estimate the daily coefficients. Since AMSU-B and MHS channels operate at different frequencies and polarizations, the measurements from the two instruments were not intercalibrated. Because of the negligible diurnal cycle of both temperature and humidity fields over the tropical oceans, the satellites with the most stable time series of brightness temperatures over the tropical oceans (NOAA-17 for AMSU-B and NOAA-18 for MHS) were selected as the reference satellites and other similar instruments were intercalibrated with respect to the reference instrument. The results show that channels 1, 3, 4, and 5 of AMSU-B on board NOAA-16 and channels 1 and 4 of AMSU-B on board NOAA-15 show a large drift over the period of operation. The MHS measurements from instruments on board NOAA-18, NOAA-19, and MetOp-A are generally consistent with each other. Because of the lack of reference measurements, radiometric correction of microwave instruments remain a challenge, as the intercalibration of these instruments largely depends on the stability of the reference instrument

An investigation of the role of current and future remote sensing data systems in numerical meteorology

A flexible system for performing observing system simulation experiments which made contributions to meteorology across all elements of the observing system simulation experiment (OSSE) components was developed. Future work will seek better understanding of the links between satellite-measured radiation and radiative transfer in the clear, cloudy and precipitating atmosphere and investigate how that understanding might be applied to improve the depiction of the initial state and the treatment of physical processes in forecast models of the atmosphere

Remote sensing of the atmosphere from environmental satellites

Various applications of satellite remote sensing of the earth are reviewed, including (1) the use of meteorological satellites to obtain photographic and radiometric data for determining weather conditions; (2) determination of the earth radiation budget from measurements of reflected solar radiation and emitted long wave terrestrial radiation; (3) the use of microwave imagery for measuring ice and snow cover; (4) LANDSAT visual and near infrared observation of floods and crop growth; and (5) the use of the Nimbus 4 backscatter ultraviolet instrument to measure total ozone and vertical ozone distribution. Plans for future activities are also discussed

Clear-sky biases in satellite infrared estimates of upper tropospheric humidity and its trends

We use microwave retrievals of upper tropospheric humidity (UTH) to estimate the impact of clear-sky-only sampling by infrared instruments on the distribution, variability and trends in UTH. Our method isolates the impact of the clear-sky-only sampling, without convolving errors from other sources. On daily time scales IR-sampled UTH contains large data gaps in convectively active areas, with only about 20-30 % of the tropics (30 S­ 30 N) being sampled. This results in a dry bias of about -9 %RH in the area-weighted tropical daily UTH time series. On monthly scales, maximum clear-sky bias (CSB) is up to -30 %RH over convectively active areas. The magnitude of CSB shows significant correlations with UTH itself (-0.5) and also with the variability in UTH (-0.6). We also show that IR-sampled UTH time series have higher interannual variability and smaller trends compared to microwave sampling. We argue that a significant part of the smaller trend results from the contrasting influence of diurnal drift in the satellite measurements on the wet and dry regions of the tropics

The rationale and suggested approaches for research geosynchronous satellite measurements for severe storm and mesoscale investigations

The measurements from current and planned geosynchronous satellites provide quantitative estimates of temperature and moisture profiles, surface temperature, wind, cloud properties, and precipitation. A number of significant observation characteristics remain, they include: (1) temperature and moisture profiles in cloudy areas; (2) high vertical profile resolution; (3) definitive precipitation area mapping and precipitation rate estimates on the convective cloud scale; (4) winds from low level cloud motions at night; (5) the determination of convective cloud structure; and (6) high resolution surface temperature determination. Four major new observing capabilities are proposed to overcome these deficiencies: a microwave sounder/imager, a high resolution visible and infrared imager, a high spectral resolution infrared sounder, and a total ozone mapper. It is suggested that the four sensors are flown together and used to support major mesoscale and short range forecasting field experiments