Physical Retrievals of Temperature, Water Vapor, and Cloud Profiles From AMSU

The measurements from satellite microwave imaging and sounding instruments on board NOAA POES are simultaneously utilized through one dimension variational method (1dvar) to retrieve atmospheric profiles of temperature, water vapor, cloud liquid and ice water. Unlike the previous studies, which used approximated physical models, the new algorithm utilizes a highly accurate radiative transfer model that includes emission and scattering from both surface and atmosphere. Preliminary results show that an inclusion of multiple scattering from clouds and precipitations improve not only cloud liquid and ice water products but also temperature and water vapor profiles. For hurricane Isabel, an emission-only radiative transfer model tends to produce unreasonable total precipitable water and produce much stronger temperature anomalies throughout atmosphere than observed ones. Using the scattering radiative transfer model, the derived total precipitable water appears reasonable and the retrieved temperature profiles agree well with dropsonds.