Evaluation Of A Microwave Radiative Transfer Model For Calculating Sat

Remote sensing is the process of gathering and analyzing information about the earth\u27s ocean, land and atmosphere using electromagnetic wireless techniques. Mathematical models, known as Radiative Transfer Models (RTM), are developed to calculate the observed radiance (brightness temperature) seen by the remote sensor. The RTM calculated brightness temperature is a function of fourteen environmental parameters, including atmospheric profiles of temperature, pressure and moisture, sea surface temperature, and cloud liquid water. Input parameters to the RTM model include data from NOAA Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), Reynolds weekly Sea Surface Temperature and National Ocean Data Center (NODC) WOA98 Ocean Salinity and special sensor microwave/imager (SSM/I) cloud liquid water. The calculated brightness temperatures are compared to collocated measurements from the WindSat satellite. The objective of this thesis is to fine tune the RadTb model, using simultaneous environmental parameters and measured brightness temperature from the well-calibrated WindSat radiometer. The model will be evaluated at four microwave frequencies (6.8 GHz, 10.7 GHz, 18.7 GHz, and 37.0 GHz) looking off- nadir for global radiance measurement