Meetings: Documents

Water Vapor, Rain Rate and Rain Flag Algorithms for MWR Microwave Radiometer
[17-Nov-2015] Heredia, S.D. and Rabolli, M.
Presented at the 2015 Aquarius/SAC-D Science Team Meeting
On board the SAC-D / Aquarius satellite there are 8 instruments developed according to specific objectives. One of such instruments is the MWR microwave radiometer. This is a push broom Dicke radiometer with three channels operating in the K (H-Pol 23.8 GHz) and Ka (36.5 GHz, H & V-Pol) bands. This instrument has 16 beams 8 forward-looking (36.5 GHz) and 8 aft-looking (23.8 GHz). Its aim is the indirect measurement of geophysical parameters: water vapor column, rain rate, wind speed and ice concentration. MWR measures brightness temperatures (L1 files) but not geophysical parameters then, it is necessary to establish a relationship that links them to obtain geophysical variables from brightness temperatures and auxiliary data. In this presentation we will describe the recent retrievals algorithms, implemented at CONAE, for the geophysical variables: water vapor column, rain rate and rain flag obtained from MWR L1 data. Also, we present the obtained results in the validation process; comparisons between MWR retrieval values with the corresponding to Windsat, SSMI, and GDAS data are presented for the validation period.