Variance Ratios, Loss of Energy and Regression in Satellite Temperature Retrievals

• Published in: Monthly weather review 1982-01, Vol.110 (4), p.296-299
• Main Authors: McMillin, Larry M., Dean, Charles A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0027-0644; 1520-0493
• DOI: 10.1175/1520-0493(1982)110<0296:VRLOEA>2.0.CO;2

Several recent papers have reported that temperatures from satellites lack the variance found in radiosonde temperatures. Because of these results, an experiment was performed to distinguish between limitations of the satellite processing system and characteristics of the procedures used to produce temperatures. In the experiment, the authors calculated radiances, the quantities observed by the satellite, for a set of radiosondes for which they also had observed radiances. Regression coefficients were then obtained for both the observed and calculated radiances and applied to an independent set. Two significant features were discovered. One is that the variances produced by the current satellite retrieval system are significantly closer to variances obtained from radiosondes than was reported in these earlier papers. The change was attributed to modifications in the retrieval system which were designed to increase the accuracy of satellite retrievals. The second is that, with the present system, a large portion of the remaining variance loss is recovered through using more accurate radiances.