Open AccessFirst Three Years of the Microwave Radiometer aboard Envisat: In-Flight Calibration, Processing, and Validation of the Geophysical Products
Author(s) -
E. Obligis,
Laurence Eymard,
N. Tran,
S. Labroue,
Pierre Féménias
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of atmospheric and oceanic technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.774
H-Index - 124
eISSN - 1520-0426
pISSN - 0739-0572
DOI - 10.1175/jtech1878.1
Subject(s) - radiosonde , brightness temperature , remote sensing , microwave radiometer , environmental science , radiometer , calibration , troposphere , meteorology , satellite , microwave , altimeter , inversion (geology) , atmospheric radiative transfer codes , radiative transfer , geology , computer science , geography , telecommunications , paleontology , physics , structural basin , quantum mechanics , statistics , mathematics , aerospace engineering , engineering
The Envisat microwave radiometer is designed to correct the satellite altimeter data for the excess path delay resulting from tropospheric humidity. Neural networks have been used to formulate the inversion algorithm to retrieve this quantity from the measured brightness temperatures. The learning database has been built with European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) analyses and simulated brightness temperatures by a radiative transfer model. The in-flight calibration has been performed in a consistent way by adjusting measurements on simulated brightness temperatures. Finally, coincident radiosonde measurements are used to validate the Envisat wet-tropospheric correction, and this comparison shows the good performances of the method.