Abstract
In this study, we considered the geophysical model for microwave brightness temperature (BT) simulation for the Atmosphere-Ocean System under non-precipitating conditions. The model is presented as a combination of atmospheric absorption and ocean emission models. We validated this model for two satellite instruments—for Advanced Microwave Sounding Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) onboard Aqua satellite and for Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) onboard F16 satellite of Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) series. We compared simulated BT values with satellite BT measurements for different combinations of various water vapor and oxygen absorption models and wind induced ocean emission models. A dataset of clear sky atmospheric and oceanic parameters, collocated in time and space with satellite measurements, was used for the comparison. We found the best model combination, providing the least root mean square error between calculations and measurements. A single combination of models ensured the best results for all considered radiometric channels. We also obtained the adjustments to simulated BT values, as averaged differences between the model simulations and satellite measurements. These adjustments can be used in any research based on modeling data for removing model/calibration inconsistencies. We demonstrated the application of the model by means of the development of the new algorithm for sea surface wind speed retrieval from AMSR-E data.
Highlights
Satellite passive microwave measurement data remain an invaluable source of regularly available remotely sensed data for environmental studies because they can be quantitatively inverted into the whole set of geophysical parameters independent of time of day and cloud coverage
We compared the calculated values of brightness temperatures with radiometric measurements for Advanced Microwave Sounding Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) for the channels at 6.925, 10.65, 18.7, 23.8 and 36.5 GHz at both polarizations and for F16 Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) for the channels at 19.35 and 37.0 GHz at both polarizations, and at 22.235, 50.3, 52.8, 53.596, 54.4 and 55.5 GHz for only vertical polarization
The results demonstrated the least root mean square difference between simulations and measurements for all considered radiometric channels provided by Turn09 model for water vapor absorption (WV), Liebe87 model for oxygen absorption (OX) and Chapr12 model for ocean emission wind dependency (OE) model calculations
Summary
Satellite passive microwave measurement data remain an invaluable source of regularly available remotely sensed data for environmental studies because they can be quantitatively inverted into the whole set of geophysical parameters independent of time of day and cloud coverage. These data have special value since most radiometers work on polar orbiting satellites, providing the highest time resolution in remote oceanic areas lacking in situ measurements. Undoubted advantages of passive microwave data go side-by-side with the necessity to be strictly consistent in their interpretation, especially for long-term climate studies based on using data from different instruments [3,4]. Such consistency can be ensured both by sensor intercalibration work [5,6,7] and model calibration studies. The quality of the used matchup dataset in any model calibration work acquires not less importance than the quality of the geophysical model used for brightness temperature calculations
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