Validation of brightness and physical temperature from two scanning microwave radiometers in the 60 GHz O₂ band using radiosonde measurements

Navas Guzman, Francisco Jesus; Kämpfer, Niklaus; Haefele, Alexander (2016). Validation of brightness and physical temperature from two scanning microwave radiometers in the 60 GHz O₂ band using radiosonde measurements. Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (AMT), 9(9), pp. 4587-4600. Copernicus Publications 10.5194/amt-9-4587-2016

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In this paper, we address the assessment of the tropospheric performance of a new temperature radiometer (TEMPERA) at 60 GHz. With this goal, an intercomparison campaign was carried out at the aerological station of MeteoSwiss in Payerne (Switzerland). The brightness temperature and the tropospheric temperature were assessed by means of a comparison with simultaneous and collocated radiosondes that are launched twice a day at this station. In addition, the TEMPERA performances are compared with the ones from a commercial microwave radiometer (HATPRO), which has some different instrumental characteristics and uses a different inversion algorithm. Brightness temperatures from both radiometers were compared with the ones simulated using a radiative transfer model and atmospheric profiles from radiosondes. A total of 532 cases were analyzed under all weather conditions and evidenced larger brightness temperature deviations between the two radiometers and the radiosondes for the most transparent channels. Two different retrievals for the TEMPERA radiometer were implemented in order to evaluate the effect of the different channels on the temperature retrievals. The comparison with radiosondes evidenced better results very similar to the ones from HATPRO, when the eight more opaque channels were used. The study shows the good performance of TEMPERA to retrieve temperature profiles in the troposphere. The inversion method of TEMPERA is based on the optimal estimation method. The main advantage of this algorithm is that there is no necessity for radiosonde information to achieve good results in contrast to conventional methods as neural networks or lineal regression. Finally, an assessment of the effect of instrumental characteristics as the filter response and the antenna pattern on the brightness temperature showed that they can have an important impact on the most transparent channels.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Applied Physics
08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Applied Physics > Microwaves

UniBE Contributor:

Navas Guzman, Francisco Jesus, Kämpfer, Niklaus, Haefele, Alexander

Subjects:

600 Technology > 620 Engineering
500 Science
500 Science > 530 Physics

ISSN:

1867-1381

Publisher:

Copernicus Publications

Language:

English

Submitter:

Simone Corry

Date Deposited:

12 Jul 2017 14:12

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:03

Publisher DOI:

10.5194/amt-9-4587-2016

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.96968

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/96968

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