Improved assimilation of data from China's FY‐3A microwave temperature sounder

The FY‐3A microwave temperature sounder (MWTS) suffers from nonlinearities in the calibration of the radiometer and uncertainties in the radiometer passbands. Corrections have been developed and are assessed here by comparing recalibrated MWTS data with equivalent advanced microwave sounding unit‐A...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAtmospheric science letters Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 9 - 15
Main Authors Lu, Qifeng, Bell, W., Bormann, N., Bauer, P., Peubey, C., Geer, A. J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.01.2012
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Subjects
Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit
assimilation
calibration
Dynamic height
Equivalence
Forecast verification
FY‐3A
Geopotential
Libraries
Memoranda
microwave radiances
Microwave sounding
MWTS
Radiometers
satellite data
China
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Summary:The FY‐3A microwave temperature sounder (MWTS) suffers from nonlinearities in the calibration of the radiometer and uncertainties in the radiometer passbands. Corrections have been developed and are assessed here by comparing recalibrated MWTS data with equivalent advanced microwave sounding unit‐A (AMSU‐A) observations. The corrections are effective in improving the first guess departure statistics for MWTS, relative to the original uncorrected data, to values close to those for AMSU‐A equivalent channels. In observing system experiments, MWTS observations improve the first guess fits for AMSU‐A observations. Forecast verification shows a systematic improvement by using the recalibrated data, e.g. forecasts of 200 hPa geopotential are improved to Day 3 in the SH by approximately 1%. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society
ISSN:1530-261X
1530-261X
DOI:10.1002/asl.354