Intercalibration Between Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder and Special Sensor Microwave Imager

Abstract

The F16 satellite was successfully launched on October 18, 2003, carrying the first special sensor microwave imager/sounder (SSMIS) onboard. In this paper, the SSMIS imaging channels 12-18 are intercalibated against the F15 special sensor microwave/imager (SSM/I) instrument using simultaneous conical overpassing (SCO) observations from both satellites. Results show that the SSMIS antenna temperatures have a mean bias as large as 1-2 K with a maximum of 3 K at 22.235 GHz with respect to F15. It appears that the mean biases at frequencies from 19.35 to 37 GHz do not strongly depend on the region and season, although the biases at the 91.655-GHz channels are slightly variable. The intercalibration analysis also shows that the nonlinearity may be one of the major sources resulting in differences between F15 SSM/I and F16 SSMIS measurements. For improved calibration and for the future SSM/I and SSMIS reprocessing, the SCO data are further utilized to resolve the SSMIS and SSM/I nonlinearity terms using a newly developed calibration algorithm. With the derived nonlinearity correction, the mean biases of the antenna temperatures between F15 and F16 are significantly reduced. To intercalibrate SSMIS to the same reference as SSM/I, SSMIS imaging channels can also be linearly mapped to the same and similar F15 SSM/I channels using the SCO matchup data. After the linear mapping, SSMIS snow-free land, snow, and sea ice surface emissivities are consistent with those derived from SSM/I.