This manuscript presents the Microwave Temperature and Humidity Profiler (MTHP), a dual-band spectroradiometer designed for measuring multi-incidence angle temperature and humidity atmospheric ...profiles from an aircraft platform. The MTHP bands are at 60 GHz for measuring the oxygen complex lines, therefore at this band, MTHP has a hyperspectral radiometer able to provide 2048 channels over an 8 GHz bandwidth, and 183 GHz for measuring water vapor, which only uses four channels since this absorption band’s spectral richness is simpler. The MTHP builds upon the Microwave Temperature Profiler (MTP) with the inclusion of the hyperspectral radiometer. The instrument’s design, components, and calibration methods are discussed in detail, with a focus on the three-point calibration scheme involving internal calibration loads and static air temperature readings. Preliminary results from the Technological Innovation into Iodine and GV aircraft Environmental Research (TI3GER) campaign are presented, showcasing the instrument’s performance during flights across diverse geographical regions. The manuscript presents successful antenna temperature measurements at 60 GHz and 183 GHz. The hyperspectral measurements are compared with a simulated antenna temperature using the Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator (ARTS) showing an agreement better than R2 > 0.88 for three of the flights analyzed. Additionally, the manuscript draws attention to potential Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) effects observed during a specific flight, underscoring the instrument’s sensitivity to external interference. This is the first-ever airborne demonstration of a broadband and hyperspectral multi-incidence angle 60 GHz measurement. Future work on the MTHP could result in an improved spatial resolution of the atmospheric temperature vertical profile and, hence, help in estimating the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) with better accuracy. The MTHP and its hyperspectral multi-incidence angle at 60 GHz have the potential to be a valuable tool for investigating the PBL’s role in atmospheric dynamics, offering insights into its impact on Earth’s energy, water, and carbon cycles.
A geostationary microwave sounder, capable of providing continuous monitoring of temperature, water vapor, clouds, precipitation, and wind in the presence of clouds and precipitation is now feasible. ...A design called the Geostationary Synthetic Thinned Aperture Radiometer (GeoSTAR) has been developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the required new technology has been developed and is sufficiently mature that a space mission can be initiated. GeoSTAR can be thought of as "AMSU in GEO," i.e., it has capabilities in geostationary earth orbit (GEO) similar to those of microwave sounders currently operating in low earth orbit. Having such a capability in GEO will add tremendously to our ability to observe dynamic atmospheric phenomena, such as hurricanes and severe storms, monsoonal moisture flow, and atmospheric rivers. GeoSTAR will make measurements every 15 min or less instead of every 12 h and cover a large portion of the Earth continuously instead of with snapshots in a narrow swath. By tracking water vapor patterns, it is also possible to derive atmospheric wind speed and direction at altitudes from the surface to 10-15 km. All of this can be done regardless of cloud cover and weather conditions. During the latter half of 2020, a detailed study of GeoSTAR and its projected performance was undertaken as one of several such studies commissioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the purpose of configuring NOAA's next generation of earth environmental satellite systems. We present a summary of our findings, including instrument characteristics, measurement accuracy and precision, and expected impact on weather prediction and applications.
We present deep CCS and HC7N observations of the L1495-B218 filaments in the Taurus molecular cloud obtained using the K-band focal plane array on the 100 m Green Bank Telescope. We observed the ...L1495-B218 filaments in CCS JN = 21-10 and HC7N J = 21−20 with a spectral resolution of 0.038 km s−1 and an angular resolution of 31″. We observed strong CCS emission in both evolved and young regions and weak emission in two evolved regions. HC7N emission is observed only in L1495A-N and L1521D. We find that CCS and HC7N intensity peaks do not coincide with NH3 or dust continuum intensity peaks. We also find that the fractional abundance of CCS does not show a clear correlation with the dynamical evolutionary stage of dense cores. Our findings and chemical modeling indicate that the fractional abundances of CCS and HC7N are sensitive to the initial gas-phase C/O ratio, and they are good tracers of young condensed gas only when the initial C/O is close to solar value. Kinematic analysis using multiple lines, including NH3, HC7N, CCS, CO, HCN, and HCO+, suggests that there may be three different star formation modes in the L1495-B218 filaments. At the hub of the filaments, L1495A/B7N has formed a stellar cluster with large-scale inward flows (fast mode), whereas L1521D, a core embedded in a filament, is slowly contracting because of its self-gravity (slow mode). There is also one isolated core that appears to be marginally stable and may undergo quasi-static evolution (isolated mode).
The design, error budget, and preliminary test results of a 50-56-GHz synthetic aperture radiometer demonstration system are presented. The instrument consists of a fixed 24-element array of ...correlation interferometers and is capable of producing calibrated images with 1deg spatial resolution within a 17deg wide field of view. This system has been built to demonstrate a performance and a design which can be scaled to a much larger geostationary Earth imager. As a baseline, such a system would consist of about 300 elements and would be capable of providing contiguous full hemispheric images of the Earth with 1 K of radiometric precision and 50-km spatial resolution. An error budget is developed around this goal and then tested with the demonstrator system. Errors are categorized as either scaling (i.e., complex gain) or additive (noise and bias) errors. Sensitivity to gain and/or phase error is generally proportional to the magnitude of the expected visibility, which is high only in the shortest baselines of the array, based on model simulations of the Earth as viewed from geostationary Earth orbit. Requirements range from approximately 0.5% and 0.3deg of amplitude and phase uncertainty, respectively, for the closest spacings at the center of the array, to about 4% and 2.5deg for the majority of the array. The latter requirements are demonstrated with our instrument using relatively simple references and antenna models, and by relying on the intrinsic stability and efficiency of the system. The 0.5% requirement (for the short baselines) is met by measuring the detailed spatial response (e.g., on the antenna range) and by using an internal noise diode reference to stabilize the response. This result suggests a hybrid image synthesis algorithm in which long baselines are processed by a fast Fourier transform and the short baselines are processed by a more precise (G-matrix) algorithm which can handle small anomalies among antenna and receiver responses. Visibility biases and other additive errors must be below about 1.5 mK on average, regardless of baseline. The bias requirement is largely met with a phase-shifting scheme applied to the local oscillator distribution of our demonstration system. Low mutual coupling among the horn antennas of our design is also critical to minimize the biases caused by crosstalk of receiver noise. Performance is validated by a three-way comparison between interference fringes measured on the antenna range, solar transit observations, and the system model.
Completion of the AMR-C Instrument for Sentinel-6 Maiwald, Frank; Brown, Shannon T.; Koch, Timothy ...
IEEE journal of selected topics in applied earth observations and remote sensing,
2020, Letnik:
13
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The advanced microwave radiometer-climate quality (AMR-C) is a part of the European Sentinel-6A/B series, a collaboration between ESA and NASA, of two Earth-observing satellites, which will be ...launched in 2020 and 2025. Compared to its predecessor, Jason-3, the two AMR-C radiometer instruments have an external calibration system which enables higher radiometric stability accomplished by moving the secondary mirror between well-defined targets. Sentinel-6 allows continuing the study of the ocean circulation, climate change, and sea-level rise for at least another decade. Besides the external calibration for the AMR heritage radiometer (18.7, 23.8, and 34 GHz channels), the AMR-C contains a high-resolution microwave radiometer (HRMR) with radiometer channels at 90, 130, and 168 GHz. This subsystem allows for a factor of 5× higher spatial resolution at coastal transitions. This article presents a brief description of the instrument and the measured performance of the completed AMR-C-A and AMR-C-B instruments.
This study presents a simulated simultaneous retrieval of mass mean cloud ice particle effective diameter, ice water content, water vapor, and temperature profiles using a combination of a 94‐GHz ...cloud radar and multifrequency (118, 183, 240, 310, 380, 664, and 850 GHz) millimeter‐ and submillimeter‐wave radiometers from a space platform. The retrieval capabilities and uncertainties of the combined radar and microwave radiometers are quantified. We show that this combined active and passive remote sensing approach with SmallSat technologies addresses a gap in the current state‐of‐the‐art remote sensing measurements of ice cloud properties, especially deriving vertical profiles of ice cloud particle sizes in the atmosphere together with the ambient thermodynamic conditions. Therefore, this new approach can serve as a plausible candidate for future missions that target cloud and precipitation processes to improve weather forecasts and climate predictions.
Key Points
This study presents a simulated ice cloud retrieval by a radar and multifrequency microwave radiometer space platform
This combined active and passive remote sensing approach outperforms current state‐of‐the‐art remote sensing of ice cloud properties
It serves as a plausible candidate for future missions that target cloud and precipitation processes
The Precipitation and All-weather Temperature and Humidity (PATH) mission is one of the NASA missions recommended by the NRC in its recent Earth Science "Decadal Survey." The focus of this mission is ...on the hydrologic cycle in the atmosphere, with applications from weather forecasting to climate research. PATH will deploy a microwave sounder, a passive radiometer that measures upwelling thermal radiation, in geostationary orbit and will for the first time provide a time-continuous view of atmospheric temperature and all three phases of water under nearly all weather conditions. This is possible because microwave radiation is sensitive to but also penetrates both clouds and precipitation, as has been demonstrated with similar sensors on low-earth-orbiting satellites. Data from those sensors, despite observing a particular location only twice a day, have had more impact on weather prediction accuracy than any other type of satellite sensor, and it is expected that PATH will have a similar impact with its ability to continuously observe the entire life cycle of storm systems. Such sensors have also played an important role in climate research and have been used to estimate long-term temperature trends in the atmosphere. An important application of PATH data will be to improve the representation of cloud formation, convection, and precipitation in weather and climate models, particularly the diurnal variation in those processes. In addition to measuring the three-dimensional distribution of temperature, water vapor, cloud liquid water, and ice, PATH also measures sea surface temperature under full cloud cover. Such observations make a number of important applications possible. Depending on the application focus and the geostationary orbit location, PATH can serve as anything from a hurricane and severe-storm observatory to an El Niño observatory. A geostationary orbit offers many advantages, as has been demonstrated with visible and infrared imagers and sounders deployed on weather satellites, but those sensors cannot penetrate clouds. It has not been possible until now to build a microwave radiometer with a large enough antenna aperture to attain a reasonable spatial resolution from a GEO orbit. A new approach, using aperture synthesis, has recently been developed by NASA at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and that is what makes PATH possible. Key technology enabling the large array of receivers in such a system has been developed, and a proof-of-concept demonstrator was completed in 2006. The state of the art in this area is now such that PATH mission development could start in 2010 and be ready for launch in 2015, but the actual schedule depends on the availability of funding. An option to fly PATH as a joint NASA-NOAA mission is being explored.
This paper describes a forward radiative transfer model and retrieval system (FMRS) for the Tropospheric Water and cloud ICE (TWICE) CubeSat instrument. We use the FMRS to simulate radiances for the ...TWICE's 14 millimeter‐ and submillimeter‐wavelength channels for a tropical atmospheric state produced by a Weather Research and Forecasting model simulation. We also perform simultaneous retrievals of cloud ice particle size, ice water content (IWC), water vapor content (H2O), and temperature from the simulated TWICE radiances using the FMRS. We show that the TWICE instrument is capable of retrieving ice particle size in the range of ~50–1000 μm in mass mean effective diameter with approximately 50% uncertainty. The uncertainties of other retrievals from TWICE are about 1 K for temperature, 50% for IWC, and 20% for H2O.
Key Points
Cloud ice particle size is an important parameter that determines cloud radiative effect, precipitation, and climate sensitivity
A simulation experiment for a CubeSat instrument is conducted to determine the accuracy of ice particle size, humidity, and temperature retrievals
The results show that the CubeSat instrument is capable of fulfilling the requirements of measuring ice particle size, humidity, and temperature
Abstract
We present deep CCS and HC
7
N observations of the L1495-B218 filaments in the Taurus molecular cloud obtained using the
K
-band focal plane array on the 100 m Green Bank Telescope. We ...observed the L1495-B218 filaments in CCS
J
N
= 2
1
–1
0
and HC
7
N
J
= 21−20 with a spectral resolution of 0.038 km s
−1
and an angular resolution of 31″. We observed strong CCS emission in both evolved and young regions and weak emission in two evolved regions. HC
7
N emission is observed only in L1495A-N and L1521D. We find that CCS and HC
7
N intensity peaks do not coincide with NH
3
or dust continuum intensity peaks. We also find that the fractional abundance of CCS does not show a clear correlation with the dynamical evolutionary stage of dense cores. Our findings and chemical modeling indicate that the fractional abundances of CCS and HC
7
N are sensitive to the initial gas-phase C/O ratio, and they are good tracers of young condensed gas only when the initial C/O is close to solar value. Kinematic analysis using multiple lines, including NH
3
, HC
7
N, CCS, CO, HCN, and HCO
+
, suggests that there may be three different star formation modes in the L1495-B218 filaments. At the hub of the filaments, L1495A/B7N has formed a stellar cluster with large-scale inward flows (fast mode), whereas L1521D, a core embedded in a filament, is slowly contracting because of its self-gravity (slow mode). There is also one isolated core that appears to be marginally stable and may undergo quasi-static evolution (isolated mode).
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