| 1. |
- Buehler, Stefan A., et al.
(författare)
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Efficient radiative transfer simulations for a broadband infrared radiometer—Combining a weighted mean of representative frequencies approach with frequency selection by simulated annealing
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer. - : Elsevier BV. - 0022-4073 .- 1879-1352. ; 111:4, s. 602-615
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present a method to efficiently simulate the measurements of a broadband infrared instrument. The High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) instrument is used as example to illustrate the method. The method uses two basic ideas. Firstly, the channel radiance can be approximated by a weighted mean of the radiance at some representative frequencies, where the weights can be determined by linear regression. Secondly, a near-optimal set of representative frequencies can be found by simulated annealing.The paper does not only describe and analyze the method, it also describes how the method was used to derive optimized frequency grids for the HIRS instruments on the satellites TIROS N, NOAA 6-19, and Metop A. The grids and weights, as well as the optimization algorithm itself are openly available under a GNU public license.
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| 2. |
- Holl, Gerrit, et al.
(författare)
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Optimised frequency grids for infrared radiative transfer simulations in cloudy conditions
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer. - : Elsevier BV. - 0022-4073 .- 1879-1352. ; 113:16, s. 2124-2134
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper shows that radiometer channel radiances for cloudy atmospheric conditions can be simulated with an optimised frequency grid derived under clear-sky conditions. A new clear-sky optimised grid is derived for AVHRR channel . For HIRS channel 11 and AVHRR channel 5, radiative transfer simulations using an optimised frequency grid are compared with simulations using a reference grid, where the optimised grid has roughly 100–1000 times less frequencies than the full grid. The root mean square error between the optimised and the reference simulation is found to be less than 0.3 K for both comparisons, with the magnitude of the bias less than 0.03 K. The simulations have been carried out with the radiative transfer model Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator (ARTS), version 2, using a backward Monte Carlo module for the treatment of clouds. With this module, the optimised simulations are more than 10 times faster than the reference simulations. Although the number of photons is the same, the smaller number of frequencies reduces the overhead for preparing the optical properties for each frequency. With deterministic scattering solvers, the relative decrease in runtime would be even more. The results allow for new radiative transfer applications, such as the development of new retrievals, because it becomes much quicker to carry out a large number of simulations. The conclusions are applicable to any downlooking infrared radiometer.
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| 3. |
- John, Viju O., et al.
(författare)
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Assessment of intercalibration methods for satellite microwave humidity sounders
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2169-897X .- 2169-8996. ; 118:10, s. 4906-4918
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Three methods for ntercalibrating humidity sounding channels are compared to assess their merits and demerits. The methods use the following: (1) natural targets (Antarctica and tropical oceans), (2) zonal average brightness temperatures, and (3) simultaneous nadir overpasses (SNOs). Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-B instruments onboard the polar-orbiting NOAA 15 and NOAA 16 satellites are used as examples. Antarctica is shown to be useful for identifying some of the instrument problems but less promising for intercalibrating humidity sounders due to the large diurnal variations there. Owing to smaller diurnal cycles over tropical oceans, these are found to be a good target for estimating intersatellite biases. Estimated biases are more resistant to diurnal differences when data from ascending and descending passes are combined. Biases estimated from zonal-averaged brightness temperatures show large seasonal and latitude dependence which could have resulted from diurnal cycle aliasing and scene-radiance dependence of the biases. This method may not be the best for channels with significant surface contributions. We have also tested the impact of clouds on the estimated biases and found that it is not significant, at least for tropical ocean estimates. Biases estimated from SNOs are the least influenced by diurnal cycle aliasing and cloud impacts. However, SNOs cover only relatively small part of the dynamic range of observed brightness temperatures
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| 4. |
- Kottayil, Ajil, et al.
(författare)
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A new technique for temperature and humidity profile retrieval from infrared sounder observations using adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system
- 2010
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Ingår i: IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. - 0196-2892 .- 1558-0644. ; 48:4, s. 1650-1659
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Accuracy of the atmospheric profiles of temperature and humidity, retrieved from infrared sounder observations using physical retrieval algorithm, depend primarily on the quality of the first guess profiles. In the past, forecasts from the numerical weather prediction models were extensively used as the first guess. During past few years, the first guess for physical retrieval is being estimated using regression techniques from sounder observations. In the present study, a new non-linear technique has been described to improve the first guess using simulated infrared brightness temperatures for GOES-12 Sounder channels. The present technique uses fuzzy logic and data clustering to establish a relationship between simulated sounder observations and atmospheric profiles. This relationship is further strengthened using Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) by fine-tuning the existing fuzzy rule base. The results of ANFIS retrieval have been compared with the non-linear (polynomial) regression retrieval. It has been found that ANFIS is more robust and shows remarkable improvement as it reduces RMS error by 20% in humidity profiles retrieval compared to the non-linear regression technique. In addition, it has been shown that the ANFIS technique has an added advantage of its global application without any need for training data classification that is required in the regression techniques.
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| 5. |
- Kottayil, Ajil, et al.
(författare)
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Correcting diurnal cycle aliasing in satellite microwave humidity sounder measurements
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2169-897X .- 2169-8996. ; 118:1, s. 101-113
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Microwave humidity measurements from polar orbiting satellites are affected by diurnal sampling biases which are caused by changes in the local observation time of the satellites. The long term data records available from these satellites thus have spurious trends, which must be corrected. Diurnal cycles of the microwave measurements have been constructed by combining data over the period 2001--2010 from five different satellite platforms (NOAA-15, -16, -17, -18, and MetOpA). This climatological diurnal cycle has been used to deduce and correct the diurnal sampling bias in AMSU-B and MHS measurements. Diurnal amplitudes for channels which are sensitive to surface temperature variations show a sharp land-sea contrast with the amplitudes exceeding 10 K for land regions, but less than one Kelvin for oceanic regions. The humidity channels sensitive to the upper and middle troposphere exhibit a seasonal variation with large diurnal amplitudes over convective land regions (often above 3 K) in comparison to oceanic regions. The diurnal peak times of these channels over land occur in the early mornings. The diurnal sampling bias correction has a greater impact over land regions when compared to oceanic regions due to the large diurnal amplitudes over land. The diurnal cycle of humidity generated as a part of this study could be used to evaluate diurnal cycles in climate models.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Kottayil, Ajil, et al.
(författare)
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On the importance of Vaisala RS92 radiosonde humidity corrections for a better agreement between measured and modeled satellite radiances
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. - 0739-0572 .- 1520-0426. ; 29:2, s. 248-259
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A study has been carried out to assess the importance of radiosonde corrections in improving the agreement between satellite and radiosonde measurements of upper-tropospheric humidity. Infrared [High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS)-12] and microwave [Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU)-18] measurements from the NOAA-17 satellite were used for this purpose. The agreement was assessed by comparing the satellite measurements against simulated measurements using collocated radiosonde profiles of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program undertaken at tropical and midlatitude sites. The Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator (ARTS) was used to simulate the satellite radiances. The comparisons have been done under clear-sky conditions, separately for daytime and nighttime soundings. Only Vaisala RS92 radiosonde sensors were used and an empirical correction (EC) was applied to the radiosonde measurements. The EC includes correction for mean calibration bias and for solar radiation error, and it removes radiosonde bias relative to three instruments of known accuracy. For the nighttime dataset, the EC significantly reduces the bias from 0.63 to −0.10 K in AMSU-18 and from 1.26 to 0.35 K in HIRS-12. The EC has an even greater impact on the daytime dataset with a bias reduction from 2.38 to 0.28 K in AMSU-18 and from 2.51 to 0.59 K in HIRS-12. The present study promises a more accurate approach in future radiosonde-based studies in the upper troposphere.
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| 8. |
- Kottayil, Ajil
(författare)
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Representation and diurnal variation of upper tropospheric humidity in observations and models
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The role of water vapour is manifold in its climate regulation of the Earth system. Most important of all despite its low concentration, is the role it plays in the upper troposphere. It assumes an important role in its contribution to greenhouse warming by way of its positive feedback effect, amplifying the radiative forcing due to increasing CO2 concentrations. Understanding the variability and distribution is thus important from a climate point of view and critical because the challenges involved in it are far too many. This thesis consists of an introduction and three research articles focusing on the study of upper tropospheric humidity (UTH). The first two articles are on two important sources of UTH data, the radiosondes and satellite data, and the third is associated with climate models, important tools for simulating and reproducing global climate features. The summaries of these three articles are as follows:Radiosondes have been the primary sources for vertical profiles of various atmospheric parameters and are one of the crucial components in numerical weather predictions and satellite validations. However, they are known to have certain issues withmeasurements of humidity in the upper troposphere. The first article highlights the importance of radiosonde humidity corrections by using satellite measurements as the reference. The infrared and microwave measurements from NOAA-17 polar orbiting satellite were used as the reference in this study. Collocated radiosonde measurements from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) campaign were converted into satellite radiances using the ARTS radiative transfer model. The comparisons with satellite measurements were done separately for daytime and nighttime soundings of radiosonde under clear sky conditions. An empirical correction procedure meant to address the mean bias error and solar radiation error was applied to the radiosondes. The empirical correction was found to significantly reduce the dry bias of radiosondes in the upper troposphere. The impact of the correction is prominent over daytime radiosonde measurements on account of the bias removal associated with the solar radiation error.Long term time-series measurements of tropospheric humidity are available from polar orbiting satellites but the measurements from these satellites have been found to be affected by diurnal sampling bias, which is caused by a drift in the orbital height of the satellites, thus changing the local sampling time of the satellites over course of time. This therefore introduces a spurious trend into the time-series data obtained from these satellites. A methodology for the correction of orbital drift error applied on microwave humidity measurements from NOAA and MetOp-A satellites forms the subject of the second article included in this thesis. Climatological diurnal cycles of microwave humidity measurements were obtained from 5 different polar orbiting satellites to infer and thereby correct the diurnal sampling bias in microwave humiditymeasurements. The diurnal cycles were generated separately for the 5 microwave channels. A Monte Carlo error analysis also determines the significance of diurnal amplitudes. The impact of diurnal correction has been evaluated by analyzing the surface channel brightness temperature time-series of NOAA-16 and UTH channel time-series of NOAA-17 satellites. The impact of diurnal correction is greater for the surface channels when compared to the UTH channels due to the larger diurnal cycle amplitudes in the surface channels.Climate models are one of the main tools for the prediction of future climatechange. Most processes associated with water vapour appear in climate models as parameterizations since they are too small-scale or complex to be physically represented in models. Therefore, frequent validation of models against observations is needed to assure their reliability. The third article evaluates the performance of two climate models, in simulating the diurnal cycles of upper tropospheric humidity taking combined microwave humidity measurements from four different satellites as the reference. The comparisons were made over the convective land and oceanic regions over the tropics. The diurnal cycle differences between infrared and microwave observations and the reason for these differences are also analyzed. It is shown that the cloud sensitivity differences in infrared data can shift the diurnal phase relative to microwave data. The models exhibit considerable differences in the diurnal phase and amplitude of UTH as against microwave observations over both land and oceanic regions.
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| 9. |
- Kottayil, Ajil
(författare)
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Satellite and radiosonde measurements of atmospheric humidity
- 2012
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This licentiate thesis is based on two papers which are related to the study ofatmospheric humidity. The first paper mainly focuses on a non linear method forretrieving atmospheric humidity from infrared sounder satellite measurements basedon fuzzy clustering which could potentially improve the retrieval accuracy. The mainaim of this study was to provide a better first guess humidity profile for physicalretrieval algorithms which can further improve retrieval accuracy. This method hasbeen compared against linear and non linear regression retrievals which are the gen-erally used methods to get the first guess profile. The results reveal that the retrievalaccuracy is better for the new method as compared to the conventional methods.Generally, the accuracy of the humidity measurements of radiosonde is poor in theupper troposphere (UT) and is worse for day time measurements due to solar heatingof the humidity sensor. Several methods have been developed to correct the humiditymeasurements of radiosondes in the UT. The second paper presents a detailed analysisof the implications of these corrections and depicts how important they are for satellitevalidation. The corrections have been applied separately for daytime and nighttimeradiosonde measurements and their effects have been quantified by comparing againstthe coinciding satellite measurements in the infrared and microwave spectral rangeused for humidity measurements.
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| 10. |
- Schreier, Franz, et al.
(författare)
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Intercomparison of three microwave/infrared high resolution line-by-line radiative transfer codes
- 2013
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Ingår i: International Radiation Symposium. - : AIP. ; , s. 119-122
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- An intercomparison of three line-by-line (lbl) codes developed independently for atmospheric sounding - ARTS, GARLIC, and KOPRA - has been performed for a thermal infrared nadir sounding application assuming a HIRS-like (High resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder) setup. Radiances for the HIRS infrared channels and a set of 42 atmospheric profiles from the "Garand dataset" have been computed. Results of this intercomparison and a discussion of reasons of the observed differences are presented
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| 11. |
- Thapliyal, Pradeep K., et al.
(författare)
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An algorithm for the estimation of upper tropospheric humidity from Kalpana observations : Methodology and validation
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 116:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study presents a methodology for estimating the upper tropospheric humidity (UTH) for a layer between 500 and 200 hPa from observations in the water vapor channel (5.6–7.2 μm) of the Indian geostationary satellite, Kalpana. Radiative transfer simulations for different UTH conditions have been used to develop the relationship between water vapor channel radiances and UTH. A new technique has been described to include the normalized reference pressure in the algorithm, to account for latitudinal variation of temperature that is derived from a diverse radiosonde profiles data set and is a polynomial function of the latitude for different months. This has an advantage that the forecast or analysis profiles from the operational numerical weather prediction model are not required to compute the normalized reference pressure. The operationally retrieved UTH products have been extensively compared and validated for the period of 1 March to 1 May 2009, using Meteosat-7 UTH products over the Indian Ocean and the UTH computed from the radiosonde profiles. The results suggest that UTH estimates from Kalpana match very well with the Meteosat-7 UTH products having RMS difference of ∼6%. Validation with the UTH computed from the radiosonde observed relative humidity shows that the RMS error of Kalpana UTH is 9.6% and the mean bias is −3.0%. Similar validation of Meteosat-7 UTH with the same set of radiosonde derived UTH shows an RMS error of 13.3% and the bias of −6.5%, which is higher in comparison to the Kalpana UTH.
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