Correction of Time-Varying Radiometric Errors in TRMM Microwave Imager Calibrated Brightness Temperature Products

This letter presents an empirical correction for a time-varying radiometric calibration error (2.5 K peak to peak) present in the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) 1B11 calibrated brightness temperature (T b ) data product. The T b error is modeled as a function of th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE geoscience and remote sensing letters 2010-10, Vol.7 (4), p.851-855
Main Authors: Biswas, Sayak K, Gopalan, Kaushik, Jones, W Linwood, Bilanow, Stephen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
1B11
Beta
Brightness temperature
Calibration
Channels
Error correction
Errors
Extraterrestrial measurements
Mathematical models
Meteorological satellites
Meteorology
Microwave measurements
Microwave radiometry
Microwaves
Numerical models
Radiometric calibration
Rain
reflector T_{b} bias
Sea measurements
Space vehicles
Sun
Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI)
version 7
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Summary:This letter presents an empirical correction for a time-varying radiometric calibration error (2.5 K peak to peak) present in the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) 1B11 calibrated brightness temperature (T b ) data product. The T b error is modeled as a function of the spacecraft orbit position and the Sun elevation above the orbit plane (solar beta angle) based on the observed systematic differences between the TMI 10-GHz vertically polarized (10-V) channel oceanic T b 's as compared to a radiative transfer model with collocated numerical weather model environmental parameters. Assuming a slightly emissive reflector, the errors in the other TMI channels are estimated from the 10-GHz error model. This method is evaluated using before- and after-correction comparisons of 1B11 data over the ocean and Amazon, and results show that this method effectively eliminates the time-varying calibration error. This correction technique will be implemented in version 7 of the TRMM 1B11 data product, which is scheduled to be released in 2010.
ISSN:1545-598X
1558-0571
DOI:10.1109/LGRS.2010.2050135