Abstract
The Moon-Based Earth Radiation Observatory (MERO) is a new platform, which is expected to advance current Earth radiation budget (ERB) research with better observations. For the instrument design of a MERO system, ascertaining the spatial resolution and sampling scheme is important. However, current knowledge about this is still limited. Here we proposed a simulation method for the MERO-measured Earth top of atmosphere (TOA) outgoing shortwave radiation (OSR) and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) fluxes and constructed the “true” Earth TOA OSR and OLR fluxes based on the Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) data. Then we used them to reveal the effects of spatial resolution and temporal scheme (sampling interval and the temporal sampling sequence) on the measurement error of a MERO. Our results indicate that the spatial sampling error in the unit of percentage reduces linearly as the spatial resolution varies from 1000 km to 100 km; the rate is 2.5%/100 km for the Earth TOA OSR flux, which is higher than that (1%/100 km) of the TOA OLR flux. Besides, this rate becomes larger when the spatial resolution is finer than 40 km. It is also demonstrated that a sampling temporal sequence of starting time of 64 min with a sampling interval of 90 min is the optimal sampling scheme that results in the least temporal sampling error for the MERO system with a 40 km spatial resolution, note that this conclusion depends on the temporal resolution and quality of the data used to construct the “true” Earth TOA OSR and OLR fluxes. The proposed method and derived results in this study could facilitate the ascertainment of the optimal spatial resolution and sampling scheme of a MERO system under certain manufacturing budget and measurement error limit.
Highlights
Climate change on Earth is dominated by the budget of the incoming and outgoing radiation [1]
The objective of this paper is to reveal the influences of spatial resolution and temporal sampling schemes on the measurement error, which could facilitate the determination of the optimal spatial resolution and the sampling scheme of the Moon-Based Earth Radiation Observatory (MERO) instrument under the specified manufacturing cost limit and accuracy requirement
outgoing shortwave radiation (OSR) and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) fluxes at an acceptable spatial resolution; this could help to shed light on the regional and global radiation imbalance without the bias caused by non-simultaneous sampling of the spatial and temporal variability of top of atmosphere (TOA) OSR and OLR; (3) all locations on the Moon share a highly similar viewing geometry towards Earth, facilitating the merging of data from MERO missions of different periods to produce long-term OSR and OLR
Summary
Climate change on Earth is dominated by the budget of the incoming and outgoing radiation [1]. Radiation Budget (GERB) [5] and the National Institute of Standards and Technology Advanced Radiometer (NISTAR) onboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) [6] Though these low-Earth-orbit (LEO) and geostationary-Earth-orbit (GEO) satellite missions have strengthened our understanding of the Earth radiation budget (ERB), there are still several limitations, which can be complemented by a Moon-Based Earth Radiation Observatory (MERO). The sampling period of a MERO is approximately 12 h per day for a fixed location on Earth, resulting in about 48 temporal samples per day if the sampling interval is set to 15 min (the GERB sampling interval) It is about 24 times larger than that of a low-orbit satellite ERB instrument. The Earth radiation imbalance cannot be measured definitively [11]
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