Abstract
Abstract. The Fundamental Climate Data Record (FCDR) of Microwave Imager Radiances from the Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF) comprises inter-calibrated and homogenized brightness temperatures from the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR), the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I), and the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder SSMIS radiometers. It covers the time period from October 1978 to December 2015 including all available data from the SMMR radiometer aboard Nimbus-7 and all SSM/I and SSMIS radiometers aboard the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) platforms. SMMR, SSM/I, and SSMIS data are used for a variety of applications, such as analyses of the hydrological cycle, remote sensing of sea ice, or as input into reanalysis projects. The improved homogenization and inter-calibration procedure ensures the long-term stability of the FCDR for climate-related applications. All available raw data records from different sources have been reprocessed to a common standard, starting with the calibration of the raw Earth counts, to ensure a completely homogenized data record. The data processing accounts for several known issues with the instruments and corrects calibration anomalies due to along-scan inhomogeneity, moonlight intrusions, sunlight intrusions, and emissive reflector. Corrections for SMMR are limited because the SMMR raw data records were not available. Furthermore, the inter-calibration model incorporates a scene dependent inter-satellite bias correction and a non-linearity correction in the instrument calibration. The data files contain all available original sensor data (SMMR: Pathfinder level 1b) and metadata to provide a completely traceable climate data record. Inter-calibration and Earth incidence angle normalization offsets are available as additional layers within the data files in order to keep this information transparent to the users. The data record is complemented with noise-equivalent temperatures (NeΔT), quality flags, surface types, and Earth incidence angles. The FCDR together with its full documentation, including evaluation results, is freely available at: https://doi.org/10.5676/EUM_SAF_CM/FCDR_MWI/V003 (Fennig et al., 2017).
Highlights
Data from space-borne microwave imagers and sounders such as the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR), Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I), and Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) are used for a variety of applications, such as analyses of the hydrological cycle and related atmospheric and surface parameters (Andersson et al, 2011), as well as remote sensing of sea ice (Lavergne et al, 2019), soil moisture (Dorigo et al, 2017), and land surface temperatures (Prigent et al, 2016)
The corrected and inter-calibrated TB values were compared to the uncorrected raw data records (RDRs) and to another SSMI(S) brightness temperature data record from Kummerow et al (2013)
The homogeneity of the data records is tested by comparing against the respective ensemble mean of the available satellites in each data record, and additional statistical values are given for bias, robust standard deviation (RSD), median absolute deviation (MAD), and decadal stability
Summary
Data from space-borne microwave imagers and sounders such as the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR), Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I), and Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) are used for a variety of applications, such as analyses of the hydrological cycle (precipitation and evaporation) and related atmospheric and surface parameters (Andersson et al, 2011), as well as remote sensing of sea ice (Lavergne et al, 2019), soil moisture (Dorigo et al, 2017), and land surface temperatures (Prigent et al, 2016). The aim of the data record, presented in this paper, is to provide such an FCDR of observed brightness temperatures for each individual instrument along with separate inter-calibration offset values to homogenize the observations across all different sensors The predecessors of this data record and the data processor suite were originally developed at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) and the University of Hamburg (UHH) for the Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite Data (HOAPS) climatology. Within the Climate Data Record Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), two FCDRs have been developed: one from the Colorado State University (CSU) (Kummerow et al, 2013) and a second one from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) (Wentz et al, 2013) Both use different methods to inter-calibrate the sensors and cover different platforms and time periods. The instrument-related specifications are always presented in a logical sequence starting with SSM/I as the most important contributor to the FCDR, followed by SSMIS and SMMR
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