Precipitation Retrieval over Land and Ocean with the SSM/I: Identification and Characteristics of the Scattering Signal
- 1 April 1989
- journal article
- Published by American Meteorological Society in Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology
- Vol. 6 (2) , 254-273
- https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0426(1989)006<0254:prolao>2.0.co;2
Abstract
The subject of this study is the identification of precipitation in warm and cold land and ocean environments from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's (DMSP) Special Sensor Micmwave/Imager (SSM/I). The high sensitivity of the SSM/I 85.5 GHz channels to volume scattering by precipitation, especially ice above the freezing level, is the basis for this identification. This ice scattering process causes SSM/I 85.5 GHz brightness temperatures to occasionally fall below 100 K. It is demonstrated that the polarization diversity available at 85.5 GHz from the SSM/I allows discrimination between low brightness temperatures due to surface water bodies versus those due to precipitation. An 85.5 GHz polarization corrected temperature (PCT) is formulated to isolate the precipitation effect. A PCT threshold of 255 K is suggested for the delineation of precipitation. This threshold is shown to be lower than what would generally be expected from nonprecipitating cloud water alone, yet high enough to s... Abstract The subject of this study is the identification of precipitation in warm and cold land and ocean environments from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's (DMSP) Special Sensor Micmwave/Imager (SSM/I). The high sensitivity of the SSM/I 85.5 GHz channels to volume scattering by precipitation, especially ice above the freezing level, is the basis for this identification. This ice scattering process causes SSM/I 85.5 GHz brightness temperatures to occasionally fall below 100 K. It is demonstrated that the polarization diversity available at 85.5 GHz from the SSM/I allows discrimination between low brightness temperatures due to surface water bodies versus those due to precipitation. An 85.5 GHz polarization corrected temperature (PCT) is formulated to isolate the precipitation effect. A PCT threshold of 255 K is suggested for the delineation of precipitation. This threshold is shown to be lower than what would generally be expected from nonprecipitating cloud water alone, yet high enough to s...Keywords
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