Evaluation of MODIS Water Vapour Products over ALGERIA using Radiosonde Data

Remote sensing of atmospheric water vapour using GNSS and Satellite data has become an efficient tool in meteorology and climate research. Many satellite data have been increasingly used to measure the content of water vapour in the atmosphere and to characterize its temporal and spatial variations. In this paper, we have used observations from radiosonde data collected from three stations (Algiers, Bechar and Tamanrasset) in Algeria from January to December 2012 to evaluate Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) total precipitable water vapour (PWV) products. Results show strong agreement between the total precipitable water contents estimated based on radiosondes observations and the ones measured by the sensor MODIS with the correlation coefficients in the range 0.69 to 0.95 and a mean bias, which does not exceed 1.5.

Improvement in tropospheric moisture retrievals from VIIRS through the use of infrared absorption bands constructed from VIIRS and CrIS data fusion

An operational data product available for both the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-20 (NOAA-20) platforms provides high-spatial-resolution infrared (IR) absorption band radiances for Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) based on a VIIRS and Crosstrack Infrared Sounder (CrIS) data fusion method. This study investigates the use of these IR radiances, centered at 4.5, 6.7, 7.3, 9.7, 13.3, 13.6, 13.9, and 14.2 µm, to construct atmospheric moisture products (e.g., total precipitable water and upper tropospheric humidity) and to evaluate their accuracy. Total precipitable water (TPW) and upper tropospheric humidity (UTH) retrieved from hyperspectral sounder CrIS measurements are provided at the associated VIIRS sensor's high spatial resolution (750 m) and are compared subsequently to collocated operational Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and S-NPP VIIRS moisture products. This study suggests that the use of VIIRS IR absorption band radiances will provide continuity with Aqua MODIS moisture products.

Empirical Model for Total Precipitable Water Retrieval from Ground-based GNSS Observations in Thailand

Retrieval of Total Precipitable Water (TPW) using ground-based Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observations is a challenging task due to its real‐time and high temporal resolution. In this paper, we present a method for establishing an analytic model for retrieving the total precipitable water (TPW) based on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observations over one-year period from 12 distributed stations across Thailand. The derived zenith total delay (ZTD) at all stations agrees well with the TPW data available from Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model. At first, a unique relationship between the ZTD and the TPW was established by taking into account of the variation of station altitudes. In addition, the bias correction technique using probability distribution function (PDF) matching was also applied to improve the final model. The inversion model of TPW from ZTD is then easily obtained using a numerical technique. The performance of our method has been successfully evaluated on an independent test data. This model can be useful in the further near real-time TPW measurements from widely available GNSS receivers.