| 1. |
- Buehler, Stefan A., et al.
(författare)
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An upper tropospheric humidity data set from operational satellite microwave data
- 2008
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 113:14, s. D14110-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 183.31 GHz observations from the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit B (AMSUB) instruments onboard the NOAA 15, 16, and 17 satellites were used to derive a new data set of Upper Tropospheric Humidity (UTH). The data set consist of monthly median and mean data on a 1.5 degrees latitude-longitude grid between 60 degrees S and 60 degrees N, and covers the time period of January 2000 to February 2007. The data from all three instruments are very consistent, with relative difference biases of less than 4% and relative difference standard deviations of 7%. Radiometric contributions by high ice clouds and by the Earth's surface affect the measurements in certain areas. The uncertainty due to clouds is estimated to be up to approximately 10%RH in areas with deep convection. The uncertainty associated with contamination from surface emission can exceed 10%RH in midlatitude winter, where the data therefore should be regarded with caution. Otherwise the surface influence appears negligible. The paper also discusses the UTH median climatology and seasonal cycle, which are found to be broadly consistent with UTH climatologies from other sensors. Finally, the paper presents an initial validation of the new data set against IR satellite data and radiosonde data. The observed biases of up to 9%RH (wet bias relative to HIRS) were found to be broadly consistent with expectations based on earlier studies. The observed standard deviations against all other data sets were below 6%RH. The UTH data are available to the scientific community on http://www.sat.ltu.se.
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| 2. |
- Buehler, Stefan, et al.
(författare)
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A simple method to relate microwave radiances to upper tropospheric humidity
- 2005
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 110:2, s. D02110-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A brightness temperature (BT) transformation method can be applied to microwave data to retrieve Jacobian weighted upper tropospheric relative humidity (UTH) in a broad layer centered roughly between 6 and 8 km altitude. The UTH bias is below 4% RH, and the relative UTH bias below 20%. The UTH standard deviation is between 2 and 6.5% RH in absolute numbers, or between 10 and 27% in relative numbers. The standard deviation is dominated by the regression noise, resulting from vertical structure not accounted for by the simple transformation relation. The UTH standard deviation due to radiometric noise alone has a relative standard deviation of approximately 7% for a radiometric noise level of 1 K. The retrieval performance was shown to be of almost constant quality for all viewing angles and latitudes, except for problems at high latitudes due to surface effects. A validation of AMSU UTH against radiosonde UTH shows reasonable agreement if known systematic differences between AMSU and radiosonde are taken into account. When the method is applied to supersaturation studies, regression noise and radiometric noise could lead to an apparent supersaturation even if there were no supersaturation. For a radiometer noise level of 1 K the drop-off slope of the apparent supersaturation is 0.17% RH−1, for a noise level of 2 K the slope is 0.12% RH−1. The main conclusion from this study is that the BT transformation method is very well suited for microwave data. Its particular strength is in climatological applications where the simplicity and the a priori independence are key advantages.
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| 3. |
- Buehler, Stefan, et al.
(författare)
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Comparison of microwave satellite humidity data and radiosonde profiles : a case study
- 2004
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 109:13, s. S13103-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article documents a case study comparing radiosonde humidity data to Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) satellite humidity data. The study had two goals: first, to develop a robust method for such a comparison, and second, to check the quality and mutual consistency of radiosonde data, radiative transfer model, and AMSU data. The radiosonde data used are Vaisala RS80 data from the station Lindenberg of the German Weather Service (DWD), which have been subject to several corrections compared to the standard data processing. The radiative transfer model is the Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator ( ARTS), and the AMSU data are those of the satellites NOAA 15 and 16 for the time periods 2001 and 2002. The comparison was done in radiance space, using a radiative transfer model to simulate AMSU radiances from the radiosonde data. The overall agreement is very good, with radiance biases below 1.5 K and standard deviations below 2 K. The main source of "noise'' in the comparison is atmospheric inhomogeneity on the 10-km scale. While the radiosonde correction performed at Lindenberg significantly reduces the bias between simulated and measured AMSU radiance, there still remains a slope in the radiance difference. Possible reasons for this were investigated. Most likely, the radiosondes underestimate the relative humidity under extremely dry conditions, showing 0 % RH when the true value is 2 - 4 % RH.
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| 4. |
- Buehler, Stefan, et al.
(författare)
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Radiative transfer calculations for a passive microwave satellite sensor : comparing a fast model and a line-by-line model
- 2006
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 111:20, s. 20304-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A comparison between the fast radiative transfer model Radiative Transfer for the TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (RTTOV-7) and the physical radiative transfer model Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator ( ARTS) was carried out. Radiances were simulated for the sounding channels of the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit B (AMSU-B) for the whole globe for a single time of a single day ( 1 January 2000, 0000 UT). Temperature, pressure, and specific humidity profiles from the reanalysis data set ERA-40 of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) were used as input for both models; geopotential height profiles were also used but only as input for ARTS. The simulations were made for two different surface emissivities, 0.60 and 0.95. The low surface emissivity case exhibits the larger radiance differences. Although the global values of the mean difference and standard deviation are small ( for example, the global mean difference for channel 18 is 0.014 K and the standard deviation is 0.232 K), the examination of the geographical distribution of the differences shows that large positive or negative values are observed over dry regions of high northern and southern latitudes and over dry elevated regions. The origin of these differences was found to be due to errors introduced by the transmittance parametrization used in RTTOV.
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| 5. |
- Emde, Claudia, et al.
(författare)
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A polarized discrete ordinate scattering model for simulations of limb and nadir long-wave measurements in 1-D/3-D spherical atmospheres
- 2004
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 109:24, s. 24207-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article describes one of the scattering algorithms of the three-dimensional polarized radiative transfer model ARTS (Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator) which has been implemented to study for example the influence of cirrus clouds on microwave limb sounding. The model uses the DOIT (Discrete Ordinate Iterative) method to solve the vector radiative transfer equation. The implementation of a discrete ordinate method is challenging due to the spherical geometry of the model atmosphere which is required for the simulation of limb radiances. The involved numerical issues, which are grid optimization and interpolation methods, are discussed in this paper. Scattering simulations are presented for limb- and down-looking geometries, for one-dimensional and three-dimensional spherical atmospheres. They show the impact of cloud particle size, shape, and orientation on the brightness temperatures and on the polarization of microwave radiation in the atmosphere. The cloud effect is much larger for limb radiances than for nadir radiances. Particle size is a very important parameter in all simulations. The polarization signal is negligible for simulations with completely randomly oriented particles, whereas for horizontally aligned particles with random azimuthal orientation the polarization signal is significant. Moreover, the effect of particle shape is only relevant for oriented cloud particles. The simulations show that it is essential to use a three-dimensional scattering model for inhomogeneous cloud layers.
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| 6. |
- Hong, Gang, et al.
(författare)
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Scattering database in the millimeter and submillimeter wave range of 100-1000 GHz for nonspherical ice particles
- 2009
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 114, s. D06201-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The inference of ice cloud properties from spaceborne sensors is sensitive to the retrieval algorithms and satellite sensors used. To approach a better understanding of ice cloud properties, it is necessary to combine satellite measurements from multiple platforms and sensors operating in visible, infrared, and millimeter and submillimeter-wave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The single-scattering properties of ice particles with consistent ice particle models are the basis for estimating the optical and microphysical properties of ice clouds from multiple satellite sensors. In this study, the single-scattering properties (extinction efficiency, absorption efficiency, single-scattering albedo, asymmetry factor, and scattering phase matrix) of nonspherical ice particles, assumed to be hexagonal solid and hollow columns, hexagonal plates, 3D bullet rosettes, aggregates, and droxtals, are computed from the discrete dipole approximation method for 21 millimeter and submillimeter-wave frequencies ranging from 100 to 1000 GHz. A database of the single-scattering properties of nonspherical ice particles are developed for 38 particle sizes ranging from 2 to 2000 μm in terms of particle maximum dimension. The bulk scattering properties of ice clouds consisting of various ice particles, which are the fundamental to the radiative transfer in ice clouds, are developed on the basis of a set of 1119 particle size distributions obtained from various field campaigns.
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| 7. |
- John, Viju O, et al.
(författare)
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Clear-sky biases in satellite infrared estimates of upper tropospheric humidity and its trends
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 116
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We use microwave retrievals of upper tropospheric humidity (UTH) to estimate the impact of clear-sky-only sampling by infrared instruments on the distribution, variability, and trends in UTH. Our method isolates the impact of the clear-sky-only sampling, without convolving errors from other sources. On daily time scales, IR-sampled UTH contains large data gaps in convectively active areas, with only about 20-30 % of the tropics (30 degrees S-30 degrees N) being sampled. This results in a dry bias of about -9 % RH in the area-weighted tropical daily UTH time series. On monthly scales, maximum clear-sky bias (CSB) is up to -30 % RH over convectively active areas. The magnitude of CSB shows significant correlations with UTH itself (-0.5) and also with the variability in UTH (-0.6). We also show that IR-sampled UTH time series have higher interannual variability and smaller trends compared to microwave sampling. We argue that a significant part of the smaller trend results from the contrasting influence of diurnal drift in the satellite measurements on the wet and dry regions of the tropics.
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| 8. |
- John, Viju O., et al.
(författare)
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Understanding intersatellite biases of microwave humidity sounders using global simultaneous nadir overpasses
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 117:D2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Simultaneous nadir overpasses (SNOs) of polar-orbiting satellites are most frequent in polar areas but can occur at any latitude when the equatorial crossing times of the satellites become close owing to orbital drift. We use global SNOs of polar orbiting satellites to evaluate the intercalibration of microwave humidity sounders from the more frequent high-latitude SNOs. We have found based on sensitivity analyses that optimal distance and time thresholds for defining collocations are pixel centers less than 5 km apart and time differences less than 300 s. These stringent collocation criteria reduce the impact of highly variable surface or atmospheric conditions on the estimated biases. Uncertainties in the estimated biases are dominated by the combined radiometric noise of the instrument pair. The effects of frequency changes between different versions of the humidity sounders depend on the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. There are significant scene radiance and thus latitude dependencies in the estimated biases and this has to taken into account while intercalibrating microwave humidity sounders. Therefore the results obtained using polar SNOs will not be representative for moist regions, necessitating the use of global collocations for reliable intercalibration.
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| 9. |
- Moradi, Isaac, et al.
(författare)
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Comparing upper tropospheric humidity data from microwave satellite instruments and tropical radiosondes
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 115:24
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Atmospheric humidity plays an important role in the Earth's climate. Microwave satellite data provide valuable humidity observations in the upper troposphere with global coverage. In this study, we compare upper tropospheric humidity (UTH) retrieved from the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-B) and the Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS) against radiosonde data measured at four of the central facilities of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program. The Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator (ARTS) was used to simulate satellite brightness temperatures from the radiosonde profiles. Strong ice clouds were filtered out, as their influence on microwave measurements leads to incorrect UTH values. Day and night radiosonde profiles were analyzed separately, to take into account the radiosonde radiation bias. The comparison between radiosonde and satellite is most meaningful for data in cloud free, night time conditions, and with a time difference of less than 2 hours. We found good agreement between the two data sets. The satellite data are slightly moister than the radiosonde data, with a mean difference of 1-2.3 %RH, depending on the radiosonde site. Monthly gridded data were also compared, and showed slightly larger mean difference of up to 3.3 %RH, which can be explained by sampling issues.
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| 10. |
- von Engeln, Axel, et al.
(författare)
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One-dimensional variational (1-D Var) retrieval of temperature, water vapor, and a reference pressure from radio occultation measurements : A sensitivity analysis
- 2003
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 108:11, s. 4337-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A 1-D Var retrieval study of simulated radio occultation measurements is presented. Temperature and a water vapor profile are retrieved along with a reference pressure to generate the pressure profile by applying the hydrostatic equation. High-resolution European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) atmospheric fields are used by a ray tracing tool to calculate the exact positions of the tangent point. The 1-D atmospheric profiles following the calculated tangent point trajectory in the 3-D ECMWF fields are used to simulate bending angle measurements with a 1-D forward model. Assimilation of these bending angles in a 1-D Var tool employing the same 1-D forward model is performed. We analyze the sensitivity of the retrieval to changes in vertical resolution, horizontal smearing of the tangent point trajectory, and the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium for a nonvertical atmospheric scan. We find that retrievals calculated without adequate vertical resolution can have significant errors in temperature and water vapor. Errors in the retrieval by assuming hydrostatic equilibrium for a nonvertical scan generally cause only minor errors in the retrieved profiles. A study into the occurrence of rays curving down toward the Earth surface indicates that about 5–10% of the profiles could experience so-called critical refraction at altitudes between 0.5 km and 2 km in case of the applied high-resolution ECMWF data.
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