scholarly journals Intersatellite Radiance Biases for the High-Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounders (HIRS) on board NOAA-15, -16, and -17 from Simultaneous Nadir Observations

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Changyong Cao ◽  
Hui Xu ◽  
Jerry Sullivan ◽  
Larry McMillin ◽  
Pubu Ciren ◽  
...  

Abstract Intersatellite radiance comparisons for the 19 infrared channels of the High-Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounders (HIRS) on board NOAA-15, -16, and -17 are performed with simultaneous nadir observations at the orbital intersections of the satellites in the polar regions, where each pair of the HIRS views the same earth target within a few seconds. Analysis of such datasets from 2000 to 2003 reveals unambiguous intersatellite radiance differences as well as calibration anomalies. The results show that in general, the intersatellite relative biases are less than 0.5 K for most HIRS channels. The large biases in different channels differ in both magnitude and sign, and are likely to be caused by the differences and measurement uncertainties in the HIRS spectral response functions. The seasonal bias variation in the stratosphere channels is found to be highly correlated with the lapse rate factor approximated by the channel radiance differences. The method presented in this study works particularly well for channels sensing the stratosphere because of the relative spatial uniformity and stability of the stratosphere, for which the intercalibration accuracy and precision are mostly limited by the instrument noise. This method is simple and robust, and the results are highly repeatable and unambiguous. Intersatellite radiance calibration with this method is very useful for the on-orbit verification and monitoring of instrument performance, and is potentially useful for constructing long-term time series for climate studies.

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander C. Boothe ◽  
Cameron R. Homeyer

Abstract. Stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE) has important and significant impacts on the chemical and radiative properties of the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. This study presents a 15-year climatology of global large-scale STE from four modern reanalyses: ERA-Interim, JRA-55, MERRA-2, and MERRA-1. STE is separated into four categories for analysis to identify the significance of known transport mechanisms: 1) vertical stratosphere-to-troposphere transport (STT), 2) vertical troposphere-to-stratosphere transport (TST), 3) lateral STT (that occurring between the tropics and the extratropics and across the tropopause "break"), and 4) lateral TST. In addition, this study employs a method to identify STE as that which crosses the lapse-rate tropopause (LRT), while most previous studies have used a potential vorticity (PV) isosurface as the troposphere-stratosphere boundary. PV-based and LRT based STE climatologies are compared using the same reanalysis output (ERA-Interim). The comparison reveals quantitative and qualitative differences, particularly in the geographic representation of TST in the polar regions. Based upon spatiotemporal integrations, we find STE to be STT-dominant in ERA-Interim and JRA-55 and TST-dominant in the MERRA reanalyses. Time series during the 15-year analysis period show long-term changes that are argued to correspond with changes in the Brewer-Dobson circulation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 5537-5559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander C. Boothe ◽  
Cameron R. Homeyer

Abstract. Stratosphere–troposphere exchange (STE) has important impacts on the chemical and radiative properties of the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. This study presents a 15-year climatology of global large-scale STE from four modern reanalyses: ERA-Interim, JRA-55, MERRA-2, and MERRA. STE is separated into three regions (tropics, subtropics, and extratropics) and two transport directions (stratosphere-to-troposphere transport or STT and troposphere-to-stratosphere transport or TST) in an attempt to identify the significance of known transport mechanisms. The extratropics and tropics are separated by the tropopause break. Any STE occurring between the tropics and the extratropics through the tropopause break is considered subtropical exchange (i.e., in the vicinity of the subtropical jet). In addition, this study employs a method to identify STE as that which crosses the lapse-rate tropopause (LRT), while most previous studies have used a potential vorticity (PV) isosurface as the troposphere–stratosphere boundary. PV-based and LRT-based STE climatologies are compared using the ERA-Interim reanalysis output. The comparison reveals quantitative and qualitative differences, particularly for TST in the polar regions. Based upon spatiotemporal integrations, we find STE to be STT dominant in ERA-Interim and JRA-55 and TST dominant in MERRA and MERRA-2. The sources of the differences are mainly attributed to inconsistencies in the representation of STE in the subtropics and extratropics. Time series during the 15-year analysis period show long-term changes that are argued to correspond with changes in the Brewer–Dobson circulation.


2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (7) ◽  
pp. 1378-1387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Changyong Cao ◽  
Mitch Goldberg ◽  
Likun Wang

Abstract A prerequisite for climate change detection from satellites is that the measurements from a series of historical satellites must be consistent and ideally made traceable to the International System of Units (SI). Unfortunately, this requirement is not met for the 14 High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounders (HIRS) on the historical NOAA satellites, because the instrument was developed for weather forecasts and lacks accuracy and consistency across satellites. It is well known that for HIRS, differences in the spectral response functions (SRF) between instruments and their prelaunch measurement uncertainties often lead to observations of the atmosphere at different altitudes. As a result of the atmospheric lapse rate, they both can introduce significant intersatellite biases. The SRF-dependent biases are further mixed with other effects such as the diurnal cycle because of observation time differences and orbital drifts, on board calibration, and algorithm issues. In this study, the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) observations are used to calculate the radiances for the 14 Television Infrared Observation Satellite series N (TIROS-N; to MetOp-A) HIRS instruments in different climate regimes and seasons to separate the SRF-induced intersatellite biases from other factors. It is found that the calculated radiance ratio (a bias indicator) using IASI observations for the HIRS satellite pairs forms bell-shaped curves that vary with the HIRS model and channel as well as climate regimes. This suggests that a bias found in the polar regions at the Simultaneous Nadir Overpass (SNO) cannot be blindly used for bias correction globally; instead, the IASI/HIRS spectral bias bell curves should be used as a complement to more fully address the biases. These bell curves also serve as lookup charts for separating the bias due to true SRF differences from that caused by SRF prelaunch measurement errors to resolve the inconsistency, which sheds new light on reprocessing and reanalysis in generating fundamental climate data records from HIRS.


2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (8) ◽  
pp. 1283-1295
Author(s):  
Xiao SHI ◽  
Guojie WANG ◽  
Ming SUN ◽  
Yvtao LI ◽  
Boni WANG ◽  
...  

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Changyong Cao ◽  
Kenneth Jarva ◽  
Pubu Ciren

Abstract Radiance data from the High-Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) have been used routinely in both direct radiance assimilation for numerical weather prediction and climate change detection studies. The operational HIRS calibration algorithm is critical for producing accurate radiance to meet the user’s needs, and it has significant impacts on products at all levels. Since the HIRS does not calibrate every scan line, the calibration coefficients between calibration cycles have to be interpolated based on a number of assumptions. In the more than 25-yr history of operational HIRS calibration, several interpolation methods have been used and, unfortunately, depending on which method is used, these algorithms can produce HIRS level 1b radiance data with significant differences. By analyzing the relationship between the instrument self-emission and gain change during filter temperature fluctuations, in this paper a significant flaw in the previous operational calibration algorithm (version 3) is identified. This caused calibration errors greater than 0.5 K and periodically degraded the HIRS radiance data quality of NOAA-15, -16, and -17 between 1998 and 2005. A new HIRS calibration algorithm (version 4) is introduced to improve the calibration accuracy, along with better indicators for instrument noise in the level 1b data. The new algorithm has been validated in parallel tests before it became operational at NOAA/National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS). Test results show that significant improvements in calibration accuracy can be achieved especially for NOAA-15/HIRS. Several areas of further calibration improvements are also identified. The new algorithm has been used for all operational satellites at NOAA/NESDIS since 28 April 2005.


2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (12) ◽  
pp. 2219-2229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Shi ◽  
John J. Bates ◽  
Changyong Cao

Abstract Measurements from the simultaneous nadir overpass (SNO) observations of the High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) are examined. The SNOs are the measurements taken at the orbital intersections of each pair of satellites viewing the same Earth target within a few seconds at high latitudes. The dataset includes satellites from NOAA-6 through NOAA-17 from 1981 to 2004. The authors found that for many channels, intersatellite biases vary significantly with respect to scene radiances. For a number of these channels, the change of the intersatellite bias within a channel can be larger than 1 mW (m2 sr cm−1)−1, which is approximately 1 K in brightness temperature, across the channel scene radiance ranges. Many of the channels with large variations of intersatellite biases are the tropospheric sounding channels centered along the sharp slope of the transmission line. These channels are particularly sensitive to the difference in spectral response functions from satellite to satellite. This radiance-dependency feature of the biases is an important factor to consider when performing intersatellite calibrations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Antonio-Juan Collados-Lara ◽  
Steven R. Fassnacht ◽  
Eulogio Pardo-Igúzquiza ◽  
David Pulido-Velazquez

There is necessity of considering air temperature to simulate the hydrology and management within water resources systems. In many cases, a big issue is considering the scarcity of data due to poor accessibility and limited funds. This paper proposes a methodology to obtain high resolution air temperature fields by combining scarce point measurements with elevation data and land surface temperature (LST) data from remote sensing. The available station data (SNOTEL stations) are sparse at Rocky Mountain National Park, necessitating the inclusion of correlated and well-sampled variables to assess the spatial variability of air temperature. Different geostatistical approaches and weighted solutions thereof were employed to obtain air temperature fields. These estimates were compared with two relatively direct solutions, the LST (MODIS) and a lapse rate-based interpolation technique. The methodology was evaluated using data from different seasons. The performance of the techniques was assessed through a cross validation experiment. In both cases, the weighted kriging with external drift solution (considering LST and elevation) showed the best results, with a mean squared error of 3.7 and 3.6 °C2 for the application and validation, respectively.


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