TY - JOUR

T1 - Microwave temperature-humidity probing of the atmosphere from space

AU - Timofeev, Yu M.

AU - Polyakov, A. V.

AU - Shul'gina, E. M.

AU - McClatchey, R.

PY - 1997/12/1

Y1 - 1997/12/1

N2 - On the basis of statistical characteristics of the outgoing microwave radiation in a spectral range from 1 to 200 GHz calculated for a clear atmosphere, the number of independent components in the spectrum is studied in the case of global variations of temperature and humidity for two types of underlying surface-dry land and water. It is shown that present-day satellite remote sensors have an insufficient number of measuring spectral channels to retrieve all the information available in the spectra on the vertical profiles of temperature and humidity. Calculations of the information content of measurements point to a relatively low informativeness of contemporary microwave radiometers compared to a full radiation experiment (1500 measurements in a spectral range from 1 to 200 GHz). The error matrices for remote sensing and for closed numerical experiments are calculated to study the accuracy of temperature-humidity probing for various random errors, for global and local statistics, and for different vertical resolutions. It is shown that temperature profiles can be determined to an accuracy of 0.5-0.1 K in the full radiation experiment.

AB - On the basis of statistical characteristics of the outgoing microwave radiation in a spectral range from 1 to 200 GHz calculated for a clear atmosphere, the number of independent components in the spectrum is studied in the case of global variations of temperature and humidity for two types of underlying surface-dry land and water. It is shown that present-day satellite remote sensors have an insufficient number of measuring spectral channels to retrieve all the information available in the spectra on the vertical profiles of temperature and humidity. Calculations of the information content of measurements point to a relatively low informativeness of contemporary microwave radiometers compared to a full radiation experiment (1500 measurements in a spectral range from 1 to 200 GHz). The error matrices for remote sensing and for closed numerical experiments are calculated to study the accuracy of temperature-humidity probing for various random errors, for global and local statistics, and for different vertical resolutions. It is shown that temperature profiles can be determined to an accuracy of 0.5-0.1 K in the full radiation experiment.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0030922144&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:0030922144

VL - 33

SP - 46

EP - 53

JO - Izvestiya - Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics

JF - Izvestiya - Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics

SN - 0001-4338

IS - 1

ER -