Vol. 23, issue 08, article # 8

Abstract:

In this paper, we performed a comparative analysis of vertical temperature and humidity profiles, obtained on the basis of MODIS satellite measurements and test radiosonde data from RAOB inventories. The results of analysis allowed us to explore the applicability of the meteorological satellite data for radiation calculations and solution of problems of atmospheric correction of satellite IR images of the Earth's surface. It is shown that the satellite and radiosonde data may markedly differ. However, the difference between them, on the average, has the same sign for the temperature and humidity profiles, and its value leads to the mutual error compensation of meteorological satellite data during their use in radiation calculations. This allows for the use of the meteorological satellite data to solve the inverse problem of retrieval of the Earth's surface temperature with an error less than 0.5-1 K from MODIS satellite measurements, when employing the RTM approach.

Keywords:

atmospheric correction, IR-spectral range, atmospheric profiles, MODIS vs RAOB, validation