Science Meetings
CONAE Microwave Radiometer (MWR) Counts to Tb Algorithm and On Orbit Validation
Jones, L., Ghazi, Z., Jacob, M., and Santos-Garcia, A. (11-Nov-14)The Central Florida Remote Sensing Lab (CFRSL), in collaboration with CONAE, have developed two improved algorithms to convert the radiometric counts to brightness temperature (Tb) for production of MWR level-1 science data. This poster presents a description of these algorithms and shows results for MWR Cal/Val activities during the past 15 months. Version 6.0 provides corrections to the previous MWR Tb algorithm (V5.0S) that remove a small nonlinearity in the radiometer transfer function. This algorithm is based upon: 1) a reanalysis of pre-launch thermal vacuum radiometric calibration testing to derive the antenna switch matrix loss coefficients, and 2) on orbit inter-satellite cross calibrations (XCAL) with the Naval Research Lab's WindSat radiometer. Results are presented that demonstrate excellent radiometric stability for a 12 month data set over both oceans and land.
Also a second version (V7.0) of MWR counts to Tb algorithm is presented. This algorithm is essentially V6.0 that has been normalized to WindSat as a radiometric transfer standard. By using the CFRSL XCAL double-difference technique, small radiometric biases between channels have been removed as well as systematic radiometric calibration drift over the entire MWR time series (~3 years). Comparisons between V6.0 and V7.0 are presented relative to WindSat.
aqsci2014_jones1.pdf (4.1 MB)