AIRS retrievals of atmospheric profiles of temperature and humidity – comparisons with radiosondes and ship-based remote sensing during AEROSE
| Minnett, Peter | University of Miami |
| Szczodrak, Malgorzata | University of Miami |
| Feltz, Wayne | University of Wisconsin |
| Nalli, Nicholas | NOAA/NESDIS |
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has determined that significantly improving weather forecasting would require global temperature and moisture soundings with at least the accuracy of the current radiosondes. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on board of the NASA EOS Aqua satellite, launched in 2002, is designed to provide high-accuracy atmospheric profiles of temperature and humidity. The validation of the AIRS atmospheric profile retrieval scheme is a continuing effort, and has so far been based mostly on dedicated and operational radiosonde measurements. The University of Miami’s Marine-Atmosphere Emitted Radiance Interferometer (M-AERI) is a sea-going instrument that measures spectra of atmospheric infrared radiation with ~10 min time resolution. These spectra can be used to retrieve profiles of temperature and humidity in the lowest 3km of the atmosphere (see presentation in session H.20). Thus M-AERI measurements provide another validation dataset for AIRS profile retrievals. An M-AERI was deployed on NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown during the 2004 Aerosol and Ocean Science Expedition (AEROSE), a multidisciplinary campaign conducted in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean from 29 February to 26 March 2004. This study presents the comparison of atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles derived from a) radiosondes, b) M-AERI and c) AIRS measurements.
This poster will be displayed at the ARM Science Team Meeting.