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Evaluation of brightness temperature from a forward model of ground-based microwave radiometer

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Abstract

Ground-based microwave radiometers are getting great attention in recent years due to their capability to profile the temperature and humidity at high temporal and vertical resolution in the lower troposphere. The process of retrieving these parameters from the measurements of radiometric brightness temperature (T B ) includes the inversion algorithm, which uses the back ground information from a forward model. In the present study, an algorithm development and evaluation of this forward model for a ground-based microwave radiometer, being developed by Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER) of India, is presented. Initially, the analysis of absorption coefficient and weighting function at different frequencies was made to select the channels. Further the range of variation of T B for these selected channels for the year 2011, over the two stations Mumbai and Delhi is discussed. Finally the comparison between forward-model simulated T B s and radiometer measured T B s at Mahabaleshwar (73.66 ∘E and 17.93∘N) is done to evaluate the model. There is good agreement between model simulations and radiometer observations, which suggests that these forward model simulations can be used as background for inversion models for retrieving the temperature and humidity profiles.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to authorities of Department of Electronics and Information Technology (Deity) and Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research (SAMEER) for providing the facilities to carry out this work. They convey their thanks to Atmospheric Radar and Instrumentation Division (ARID) team members for their support during the work. They acknowledge the authorities of University of Wyoming website for providing radiosonde data in the public domain. Authors are thankful to anonymous reviewers, whose suggestions have resulted in substantial improvement of the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER), Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Mumbai, 400 076, India

    S Rambabu, J S Pillai & A Agarwal

  2. Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, 411 008, India

    G Pandithurai

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  1. S Rambabu
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  2. J S Pillai
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  3. A Agarwal
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  4. G Pandithurai
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Correspondence to S Rambabu.

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Rambabu, S., Pillai, J.S., Agarwal, A. et al. Evaluation of brightness temperature from a forward model of ground-based microwave radiometer. J Earth Syst Sci 123, 641–650 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-014-0439-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-014-0439-7

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