Remote Sensing of Atmospheric Temperature Profiles with the Nimbus 5 Microwave Spectrometer

• Published in: Journal of the atmospheric sciences 1975-10, Vol.32 (10), p.1953-1969
• Main Authors: Waters, J. W., Kunzi, K. F., Pettyjohn, R. L., Poon, R. K. L., Staelin, D. H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0022-4928; 1520-0469
• DOI: 10.1175/1520-0469(1975)032<1953:RSOATP>2.0.CO;2

This article discusses remote sensing of atmospheric temperatures with the NEMS microwave spectrometer on the Nimbus-5 satellite, and the accuracy with which atmospheric temperatures can be determined by NEMS. The sensitivity of the NEMS instrument permits measurement of temperature profiles having vertical resolution of the respective NEMS weighting functions ( similar to 10 km) with an r.m.s. accuracy of a few tenths of a degree Kelvin for a 16-sec integration time. The accuracy of NEMS in estimating atmospheric temperatures at the discrete levels ( similar to 2 km vertical resolution in the lower troposphere) used in the operational numerical model of the National Meteorological Center (NMC) is similar to 2 K r.m.s., as determined by comparing NEMS results with ground truth data obtained from the NMC operational analysis and from coincident radiosondes. These accuracies are consistent with the theoretical accuracies expected for NEMS.