An Assessment of Jason-1 Microwave Radiometer Measurements and Products

In the context of the sea level survey at the mm level, it is necessary all along the lifetime of the altimeter mission to survey the quality of the products from the microwave radiometer. The calibration of the brightness temperatures has been validated using reference brightness temperatures over selected continental areas as well as simulations for a wide range of oceanic and atmospheric situations. The validation of the wet path delay is performed by comparison with radiosonde measurements and pointed out that both the JMR and the TMR estimate wet path delay around 5 mm higher than the one measured by radiosondes. Furthermore, it appeared that the correction of the TMR drift degrades the product with respect to radiosonde measurements. The monitoring of the brightness temperatures since launch shows a mean drift around +0.1 K/year for the 18.7 GHz, ?0.6 K/year for the 23.8 GHz channel, and around ?0.4 K/year for the 34 GHz channel.     

An Assessment of Jason-1 Microwave Radiometer Measurements and Products

In the context of the sea level survey at the mm level, it is necessary all along the lifetime of the altimeter mission to survey the quality of the products from the microwave radiometer. The calibration of the brightness temperatures has been validated using reference brightness temperatures over selected continental areas as well as simulations for a wide range of oceanic and atmospheric situations. The validation of the wet path delay is performed by comparison with radiosonde measurements and pointed out that both the JMR and the TMR estimate wet path delay around 5 mm higher than the one measured by radiosondes. Furthermore, it appeared that the correction of the TMR drift degrades the product with respect to radiosonde measurements. The monitoring of the brightness temperatures since launch shows a mean drift around +0.1 K/year for the 18.7 GHz, -0.6 K/year for the 23.8 GHz channel, and around -0.4 K/year for the 34 GHz channel.     

A study on retrieval algorithms in oceanic passive microwave remote sensing using 1.4 GHz and 10.7 GHz bands

To retrieve sea-surface salinity (SSS) from radiometer data at 1.4 GHz, auxiliary data of sea-surface temperature (SST), surface roughness and meteorological variables are needed. The authors study oceanic passive polarimetric microwave remote sensing using 1.4 GHz and 10.7 GHz bands. A set of algorithms are developed for 1.4 GHz and 10.7 GHz microwave polarimetric radiometer at 50° incidence angle to retrieve wind vector, as well as other geophysical parameters, such as SSS, SST, atmospheric volumes of water vapor and liquid water. Idealized retrievals are conducted using 2324 simulated brightness temperatures of full Stokes parameters at 1.4 GHz and 10.7 GHz. Results indicate that SSS, SST, sea-surface wind speed, direction, atmospheric volumes of water vapor and liquid water can be inversed at the same time. This suggests an alternative way for SSS remote sensing.     

一维综合孔径微波辐射计遥感海面温度的敏感性分析

一维综合孔径微波辐射计能够有效提高观测的空间分辨率,其观测入射角通常在0°~55°范围内变化。为了开发适用于一维综合孔径微波辐射计的海面温度反演算法,需要评估其观测亮温对海洋大气环境要素的敏感性。利用海面发射率模型和大气辐射传输模型,构建了适用于一维综合孔径微波辐射计的微波海洋大气辐射传输模式,研究了C波段垂直和水平极化微波辐射亮温在不同入射角下对海洋大气环境要素的敏感性变化情况,并定量计算了相应的敏感系数。结果表明:垂直和水平极化亮温对海洋大气环境要素的敏感性表现出不同的特性。随着入射角的增大,垂直极化亮温对海面温度的敏感性增强,对海面风场的敏感性相对减弱;水平极化亮温则相反。由大气水汽含量和云液态水含量误差引入的垂直和水平极化亮温误差随入射角增大而增大,但是,即使在55°的大入射角下垂直和水平极化亮温误差仍小于0.12 K。对于海面温度反演精度优于1 K的要求,一维综合孔径微波辐射计的测温精度需优于0.6 K。研究结果对于一维综合孔径微波辐射计海面温度反演算法的研究和载荷设计具有一定的理论指导意义。     

基于一维综合孔径微波辐射计的海面温度反演研究

Due to the low spatial resolution of sea surface temperature(T_S) retrieval by real aperture microwave radiometers,in this study, an iterative retrieval method that minimizes the differences between brightness temperature(T_B)measured and modeled was used to retrieve sea surface temperature with a one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometer, temporarily named 1 D-SAMR. Regarding the configuration of the radiometer, an angular resolution of 0.43° was reached by theoretical calculation. Experiments on sea surface temperature retrieval were carried out with ideal parameters; the results show that the main factors affecting the retrieval accuracy of sea surface temperature are the accuracy of radiometer calibration and the precision of auxiliary geophysical parameters. In the case of no auxiliary parameter errors, the greatest error in retrieved sea surface temperature is obtained at low T_S scene(i.e., 0.710 6 K for the incidence angle of 35° under the radiometer calibration accuracy of0.5 K). While errors on auxiliary parameters are assumed to follow a Gaussian distribution, the greatest error on retrieved sea surface temperature was 1.330 5 K at an incidence angle of 65° in poorly known sea surface wind speed(W)(the error on W of 1.0 m/s) over high W scene, for the radiometer calibration accuracy of 0.5 K.     

The Seasat scanning multichannel microwave radiometer (SMMR): Instrument description and performance

The scanning multichannel microwave radiometer (SMMR) is an imaging 5-frequency radiometer flown on the Seasat and Nimbus-7 earth satellites launched in 1978. It measures dual-polarized microwave radiances from the earth's atmosphere and surface, primarily for the purpose of deriving global and nearly all-weather measurements of sea surface temperature, wind speed, and atmospheric liquid water and water vapor. This paper describes the SMMR instrument and its calibration, antenna pattern measurements, and data processing procedures. Analysis of early data from the Seasat SMMR shows that the expected engineering performance in flight was achieved, and the measurement of sea surface temperature and wind speed with accuracies of 1.5 K and 2 m/s, respectively, may be achievable once the geophysical data processing algorithms and analysis have been completed.     

Sea surface temperature retrieval based on simulated microwave polarimetric measurements of a one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometer

Compared with traditional real aperture microwave radiometers, one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometers have higher spatial resolution. In this paper, we proposed to retrieve sea surface temperature using a one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometer that operates at frequencies of 6.9 GHz, 10.65 GHz,18.7 GHz and 23.8 GHz at multiple incidence angles. We used the ERA5 reanalysis data provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and a radiation transmission forward model to calculate the model brightness temperature. The brightness temperature measured by the spaceborne one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometer was simulated by adding Gaussian noise to the model brightness temperature.Then, a backpropagation(BP) neural network algorithm, a random forest(RF) algorithm and two multiple linear regression algorithms(RE1 and RE2) were developed to retrieve sea surface temperature from the measured brightness temperature within the incidence angle range of 0°–65°. The results show that the retrieval errors of the four algorithms increase with the increasing Gaussian noise. The BP achieves the lowest retrieval errors at all incidence angles. The retrieval error of the RE1 and RE2 decrease first and then increase with the incidence angle and the retrieval error of the RF is contrary to that of RE1 and RE2.     

Monitoring the TOPEX and Jason-1 Microwave Radiometers with GPS and VLBI Wet Zenith Path Delays

Monitoring of altimeter microwave radiometer measurements is necessary in order to identify radiometer drifts or offsets that if uncorrected will introduce systematic errors into ocean height measurements. To examine TOPEX Microwave Radiometer (TMR) and Jason-1 Microwave Radiometer (JMR) behavior, we have used coincident wet zenith delay estimates from Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) and Global Positioning System (GPS) geodetic sites near altimeter ground tracks. We derived a TMR path delay drift rate of ?1.1 ± 0.1 mm/yr using GPS data for the period from 1993.0–1999.0 and ?1.2 ± 0.5 mm/yr using VLBI data. Thereafter, the drift appears to have leveled off. Already after 2.3 years (82 cycles) of the Jason-1 mission, it is clear that there have been significant systematic errors in the JMR path delay measurements. From comparison with GPS wet delays, there is an offset of ?5.2 ± 0.6 mm at about cycle 30 and a more abrupt offset of ?11.5 ± 0.8 mm at cycle 69. If we look at the behavior of the JMR coldest brightness temperatures, we see that the offsets near cycle 30 and cycle 69 are mainly caused by corresponding offsets in the 23.8 GHz channel of ?0.49 ± 0.12 K and ?1.18 ± 0.13 K, although there is a small 34.0 GHz offset at cycle 69 of 0.75 ± 0.22 K. Drifts in the 18.0 and 34.0 GHz channels produce a small path delay drift of 0.3 ± 0.5 mm/yr.     

Monitoring the TOPEX and Jason-1 Microwave Radiometers with GPS and VLBI Wet Zenith Path Delays

Monitoring of altimeter microwave radiometer measurements is necessary in order to identify radiometer drifts or offsets that if uncorrected will introduce systematic errors into ocean height measurements. To examine TOPEX Microwave Radiometer (TMR) and Jason-1 Microwave Radiometer (JMR) behavior, we have used coincident wet zenith delay estimates from Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) and Global Positioning System (GPS) geodetic sites near altimeter ground tracks. We derived a TMR path delay drift rate of -1.1 ± 0.1 mm/yr using GPS data for the period from 1993.0-1999.0 and -1.2 ± 0.5 mm/yr using VLBI data. Thereafter, the drift appears to have leveled off. Already after 2.3 years (82 cycles) of the Jason-1 mission, it is clear that there have been significant systematic errors in the JMR path delay measurements. From comparison with GPS wet delays, there is an offset of -5.2 ± 0.6 mm at about cycle 30 and a more abrupt offset of -11.5 ± 0.8 mm at cycle 69. If we look at the behavior of the JMR coldest brightness temperatures, we see that the offsets near cycle 30 and cycle 69 are mainly caused by corresponding offsets in the 23.8 GHz channel of -0.49 ± 0.12 K and -1.18 ± 0.13 K, although there is a small 34.0 GHz offset at cycle 69 of 0.75 ± 0.22 K. Drifts in the 18.0 and 34.0 GHz channels produce a small path delay drift of 0.3 ± 0.5 mm/yr.     

基于一维综合孔径微波辐射计的大气海洋环境参数敏感性分析

相比于实孔径微波辐射计,一维综合孔径微波辐射计具有高空间分辨率和多入射角观测特点。本文提出采用观测频率为6.9,10.65,18.7,23.8和36.5 GHz,且入射角范围为0°~65°的一维综合孔径微波辐射计遥感大气海洋环境要素。基于构建的微波大气海洋辐射传输正演模型,分析了辐射计亮温对大气海洋环境要素的敏感性,为辐射计关键指标确定和大气海洋环境要素反演算法设计提供技术支撑。结果表明：一维综合孔径微波辐射计的垂直和水平极化亮温对大气海洋环境要素的敏感性表现出不同特性,且敏感性随入射角的改变而变化显著;6.9和10.65 GHz对海面温度的敏感性较大,且随着入射角的增大,垂直极化亮温的敏感性增大,水平极化亮温的敏感性减小;10.65和18.7 GHz对海面风速的敏感性相对较大,且敏感性最大的风速区间位于10~20 m/s;23.8 GHz对大气水汽含量最敏感,且水汽含量较低、入射角较大时,敏感性越大;36.5 GHz对云液态水含量最敏感,随着入射角的增大,垂直极化亮温的敏感性减小,水平极化的敏感性增大,但两者均在液态水含量较小时表现出较大的敏感性。     

HY-2卫星扫描微波辐射计数据反演北极海冰漂移速度

本文基于最大互相关法,利用海洋二号（HY-2）卫星扫描微波辐射计37 GHz通道多时相垂直极化亮温数据,获取了北极海冰漂移速度。采用2012年和2013年国际北极浮标计划海冰现场观测数据,对利用微波辐射计亮温资料反演的冬季北极海冰漂移速度进行了定量验证,结果表明:流速和流向均方根误差分别为1.12 cm/s和16.37°,从一定程度上说明了HY-2卫星扫描微波辐射计亮温数据反演海冰漂移速度的可行性。此外,使用美国国防气象卫星F-17搭载的专用微波成像仪91 GHz通道垂直极化亮温,采用高斯拉普拉斯滤波方法进行处理,结合最大互相关法反演的海冰漂移速度,优于法国海洋开发研究院海冰漂移速度产品。     

Radiometric observations of sea temperature at 2.65 GHZ over the chesapeake bay

The present work describes the various corrections necessary in order to deduce ocean surface temperature fromS-band microwave radiometer measurements and applies these results to a series of data obtained with a high absolute accuracy radiometer. Measurements made with a 2.65 GHz radiometer from an aircraft flown over the Chesapeake Bay area are presented and compared in detail with accurately obtained sea truth data. For the calm sea, it was found that the observed brightness temperature agreed well with that calculated from the known sea surface and atmospheric properties over a fairly wide range of surface salinity values (0.2 per mille to 25 per mille). For cases where the surface wind speeds are of the order of 7 to 15 knots, an excess brightness temperature was observed which is attributable to surface roughness and microscale surface disturbances. The excess brightness temperature dependence on wind speed was found to correlate to a certain extent with the rms wave slope dependence on wind speed.     

A GPS and Cold Ocean Brightness Temperature Calibration of the ERS-2 and TOPEX/Poseidon Microwave Radiometers

Sea-level change studies from altimetric satellites are reliant on range stability of the sea surface heights computed from orbital positioning and geophysically corrected data. One such correction, namely the wet tropospheric delay induced by the highly variable atmospheric water vapor content, is provided by radiometers onboard ERS-2 and TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P). In this study the long-term stability of the ERS-2 microwave radiometer (E2MR) and the T/P microwave radiometer (TMR) are investigated with the observed drift in the brightness temperatures approximated by reference to the coldest temperatures over the oceans. The E2MR stability is characterized by a gain anomaly fall in 1996 and a drift in the 23.8 GHz channel. For the TMR, investigations show that the dominant drift is about 0.2 K/year in the 18 GHz channel over the first 7-8 years but stabilizing and even decreasing slightly thereafter. In contrast, the 21 GHz and 37 GHz channels are comparatively stable. Utilizing correction formulae a modified wet tropospheric range is inferred from “small-change” analysis of the radiometric correction given on the altimetric Geophysical Data Records. The accuracy of this formulism is validated by independent comparison against GPS derived wet tropospheric delays inferred at 14 coastal IGS stations with near continuous data from September 1992 through to the present day. Comparisons between GPS results for ERS-2 and T/P show that the E2MR path delay is 14 mm short. For T/P, the spatial distribution of the wet tropospheric enhancement is further investigated to show that the nonuniformity can equate to a deviation in sea-level height change of about 0.1 mm/year compared with global average sea-level change. Finally, the altimetric range stability of T/P is revisited by comparison against time series from the global network of tide gauges. Analysis shows that the validated TMR drift correction results in a residual trend of -0.27 ± 0.11 mm/yr which is not significant at the 3σ level.     

Validation of the “HY-2” altimeter wet tropospheric path delay correction based on radiosonde data

Wet tropospheric path delay （PD） is a highly variable term for the altimeter measurement of a sea surface height, caused by the refraction effect of atmospheric water vapor and cloud liquid water. In order to esti- mate PD values, the ＂HY-2＂ system includes a calibration microwave radiometer （CMR） operating at 18.7, 23.8 and 37 GHz. The PD data of the CMR were compared and validated by coincident radiosonde profiles from ten globally distributed radiosonde stations during October 2011 to August 2012. The temporal interval was 1 h. In order to avoid land contamination, different spatial intervals between these two data sets were tested. The empirical fit function of PD uncertainty and spatial interval was found and extrapolated to the ideal situation that the data of CMR and radiosonde were totally coincident. The stability of the brightness temperature of the CMR and its impact on the PD correction was also studied. Consequently, the uncertainty of the PD algorithm of the CMR was estimated to be 2.1 cm.     

Assessing the Measurement Consistency Between the Jason-2/AMR and SARAL/AltiKa/DFMR Microwave Radiometers Using Simultaneous Nadir Observations

SARAL/AltiKa has a Dual Frequency Microwave Radiometer (DFMR), and Jason-2 has an Advanced Microwave Radiometer (AMR). Both microwave radiometer sensors include a 23.8 GHz primary water sensing channel. The measurement consistencies between DFMR and AMR are important for establishing a consistent altimetry data set between SARAL/AltiKa and Jason-2 in order to accurately assess sea level rise in a long-term time series. This study investigates the measurement consistency in the 23.8 GHz channel between DFMR and AMR at the Simultaneous Nadir Overpasses (SNO's) between the two satellites and also at coldest ocean brightness temperature locations. Preliminary results show that while both instruments show no significant trends over the one year since the launch of SARAL, a consistent relative bias of 2.88 K (DFMR higher than AMR) with a standard deviation of 0.98 K is observed. The relative bias at the lowest brightness temperature from the SNO method (-3.82 K) is consistent with that calculated from coldest ocean method (-3.74 K). The relative bias exhibits strong latitude (and scene temperature) dependency, changing from -3.82 K at high latitudes to -0.92 K near the equator. There also exists an asymmetry between the northern and southern hemisphere. The relative bias increases toward the lower end of brightness temperature.     

基于亚马逊热带雨林的微波辐射计定标基准分析

亚马逊热带雨林作为稳定地物目标,适合进行星载微波辐射计的外定标。但近些年亚马逊热带雨林受人为破坏严重,植被覆盖面积减少,植被覆盖率降低,适合进行外定标的区域较往年发生了变化。文中依据亚马逊热带雨林近些年的归一化植被指数(NDVI)的变化情况,发现纬度位于3°S^2°N,经度位于74°W^69°W范围内的区域植被覆盖率高,适合进行星载微波辐射计外定标。文中以AMSR2 L1R亮温数据为基准,对比分析了该区域在2015-2017年3 a的亮温变化趋势,并以此作为该区域的定标基准。分析发现,该区域在非厄尔尼诺事件期间的亮温变化趋势呈现出特定的季节变化规律:在每年的6-7月,亮温值达到最低;在11-12月,亮温值达到最高,7-11月波动上升,12-6月波动下降。在厄尔尼诺事件发生期间会出现亮温值异常现象。     

AltiKa Radiometer: Instrument Description and In–Flight Performance

On 25 February 2013, the Satellite for Argos and AltiKa (SARAL) was launched from the Indian Sriharikota launch site. The AltiKa payload consisted of an altimeter and a radiometer. This paper describes the AltiKa radiometer. This instrument has been studied for several years by CNES, TAS-F, ASTRIUM-F and a set of science laboratories, and AltiKa is the first compact instrument embedding simultaneously the altimeter and radiometer functions. AltiKa radiometer is a dual frequency instrument working in K (23.8 GHz) and Ka band (37 GHz), it is based on the total power principle, with direct detection receivers. On-ground acceptance tests exhibited a very high level of performance: less than 0.2 dB has been estimated for both sensitivity and absolute accuracy in both frequencies. This paper focuses on the in-flight performances that have been observed since the launch. All the instrument observable characterizations are nominal, and in-flight sensitivity has been estimated lower than 0.2 K.     

Polarization effects in seaice signatures

Observations of microwave emissivities of multiyear sea ice showed anomalies at horizontal polarization in the frequency range from 5 to 35 GHz during the Norwegian Remote Sensing Experiment (NORSEX) [1] in September and October 1979. The effect can be explained by layers of solid ice present in the dry snow cover throughout the NORSEX area. A special experiment made on a typical multiyear floe confirms this explanation. Since the results also indicate that at 94 GHz the layers do not affect the radiation, a dual-polarized radiometer in the 90-GHz window is a promising sea-ice sensor.     

A new scheme for retrieving ocean surface salinity from simulated multi-angular SMOS brightness temperature

The European Space Agency will launch the first salinity satellite for remotely sensing the global soil moisture and ocean salinity (SMOS) at a sun-synchronous orbit in 2009. One of the payloads on the satellite is a synthetic aperture microwave radiometer (MIRAS), which is an innovative instrument designed as a two-dimensional (2D) interferometer for acquiring brightness temperature (TB) at L-band (1.4 GHz). MIRAS allows measuring TB at a series of incidences for full polarizations. As the satellite travels, a given location within the 2D field of view is observed from different incidence angles. The authors develop a new scheme to retrieve the sea-surface salinity (SSS) from SMOS’s TB at multi-incidence angles in a pixel, utilizing the properties of emissivity changing with incidence angles. All measurements of a given Stokes parameter in a pixel are first fitted to incidence angles in three order polynomial, and then the smoothed data are used for retrieving the SSS. The procedure will remove the random noise in TB greatly. Furthermore, the new method shows that the error in retrieved SSS is very sensitive to the system biases in the calibrated TB of the sensor, but the error in the retrieval is also a system bias, which can be corrected by post-launch validation. Therefore, this method may also serve as a means to evaluate the calibration precision in TB.     

Preliminary calibration results of the HY-2B altimeter’s SSH at China’s Wanshan calibration site

Satellite altimeter needs to be calibrated to evaluate the accuracy of sea surface height data. The dedicated altimeter calibration field needs to establish a special calibration strategy and needs to evaluate its calibration ability. This paper describes absolute calibration of HY-2B altimeter SSH using the GPS calibration method at the newly Wanshan calibration site, located in the Wanshan Islands, China. There are two HY-2B altimeter passes across the Wanshan calibration site. Pass No. 362 is descending and the ground track passes the east of Dan’gan Island. Pass No. 375 is ascending and crosses the Zhiwan Island. The GPS data processing strategy of Wanshan calibration site was established and the accuracy of GPS calibration method of Wanshan calibration site was evaluated. Meanwhile, the processing strategies of the HY-2B altimeter for the Wanshan calibration site were established, and a dedicated geoid model data were used to benefit the calibration accuracy. The time-averaged HY-2B altimeter bias was approximately 2.12 cm with a standard deviation of 2.08 cm. The performance of the HY-2B correction microwave radiometer was also evaluated in terms of the wet troposphere path delay and showed a mean difference ?0.2 cm with a 1.4 cm standard deviation with respect to the in situ GPS radiosonde.