New Temporal and Spectral Unfiltering Technique for ERBE/ERBS WFOV Nonscanner Instrument Observations

Abstract

Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) Wide-Field-of-View (WFOV) nonscanner instrument onboard Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) provided critical 15-year outgoing broadband irradiances at the top of atmosphere (TOA) from 1985 to 1999 for studying Earth’s climate. However, earlier studies show that the uncertainty in this radiation data set (Ed3) is significantly higher after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in 1991 and satellite battery issue in 1993. Furthermore, Lee e t al. showed that the transmission of ERBS WFOV shortwave dome degraded due to exposure to direct sunlight. To account for this degradation, a simple time-dependent but spectral-independent correction model was implemented in the past. This simple spectral-independent model did not completely remove the shortwave sensor artifact as seen in the temporal growth of the tropical mean day-minus-night longwave irradiance. A new temporal–spectral-dependent correction model of shortwave dome transmissivity loss similar to that used in the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) project is developed and applied to the 15-year ERBS WFOV data. This model is constrained by the solar transmission obtained from ERBS WFOV shortwave nonscanner instrument observations of the Sun during biweekly in-flight solar calibration events. This new model is able to reduce the reported tropical day-minus-night longwave irradiance trend by ≈34%. In addition, the slope of this new trend is observed to be consistent over different regions. The remaining trend is accounted using a postprocess Ed3Rev1 correction. Furthermore, the time series analysis of these data over the Libya-4 desert site showed that the shortwave data are stable to within 0.7%.