Radiative Transfer Model Simulations for Ground-Based Microwave Radiometers in North China

Radiative Transfer Model Simulations for Ground-Based Microwave Radiometers in North China

Ground-based microwave radiometer profilers (MWRPs) are widely used to provide high-temporal resolution atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles. The quality of the observed brightness temperature (TB) from MWRPs is key for retrieving accurate atmospheric profiles. In this study, TB simulations...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 13; no. 24; p. 5161
Main Authors: He, Wenying, Cheng, Yunchu, Zou, Rongshi, Wang, Pucai, Chen, Hongbin, Li, Jun, Xia, Xiangao
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-12-2021
Subjects:
Algorithms
atmosphere profiles
Atmospheric temperature
Bias
Brightness temperature
Calibration
Channels
ground-based microwave radiometer
Humidity
Meteorological satellites
microwave brightness temperature
Microwave radiometers
Nitrogen
Outdoor air quality
Precipitation
Quality assessment
Radiation
Radiative transfer
radiative transfer model
Radiometers
Radiosondes
Remote sensing
Simulation
Temporal resolution
Water vapor
Beijing China
China
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Summary:Ground-based microwave radiometer profilers (MWRPs) are widely used to provide high-temporal resolution atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles. The quality of the observed brightness temperature (TB) from MWRPs is key for retrieving accurate atmospheric profiles. In this study, TB simulations derived from a radiative transfer model (RTM) were used to assess the quality of TB observations. Two types of atmospheric profile data (conventional radiosonde and ERA5 reanalysis) were combined with the RTM to obtain TB simulations, then compared with corresponding observations from three MWRPs located in different places in North China to investigate the influence of input atmospheric profiles on TB simulations and evaluate the quality of TB observations from the three MWRPs. The comparisons of the matching samples under clear-sky conditions showed that TB simulations derived from both radiosonde and ERA5 profiles were very close to the TB observations from most of the MWRP channels; however, the correlation was lower and the bias was obvious at 51.26 GHz and 52.28 GHz, which indicates that the oxygen absorption component in the RTM needs to be improved for lower-frequency temperature channels. The difference in location of the radiosonde and MWRP sites affected the TB simulations for the water vapor channels, but had little impact on temperature channels that are insensitive to humidity. Comparisons of both simulations (ERA5 and Radiosonde) and the corresponding TB observations from the three sites indicated that the water vapor channels observation quality for the MWRP located in southern Beijing needs improvement. For the two types of profile data, ERA5 profiles have a more positive effect on TB simulations in the water vapor channels, such as enhanced consistence, reduced bias and standard deviation between simulations and observations for those MWRPs located away from the radiosonde station. Therefore, hourly ERA5 data are an optimal option in terms of compensating for limited radiosonde measurements and enhancing the monitoring quality of MWRP observations within 24 h.
ISSN:2072-4292
2072-4292
DOI:10.3390/rs13245161