Abstract

A method is presented for calibrating the water vapor channel (5.7–7.1μm) of the geostationary meteorological satellite METEOSAT by radiative transfer calculations. Radiances are calculated from the temperature and moisture profiles of conventional radiosondes and linearly related to collocated satellite measured digital counts. Collocations are considered only for areas with neither medium nor high level cloud. Radiosonde data are routinely received twice per day (1200 and 2400 UT). Radiosonde profiles from an 8-day period in May 1988, and simultaneous Meteosat-2 water vapor measurements are analyzed. The total of 340 collocations provides a calibration coefficient with a precision of 2% assuming a 95% confidence. A preliminary analysis of calibration coefficients of the recently launched METEOSAT-3 shows a significant increase of 6% over a period of 48 days in Sept./Oct. 1988. The calibrated water vapor radiances are operationally used to estimate the upper tropospheric humidity field and to correct the height assignment of semitransparent clouds.

© 1989 Optical Society of America

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