Using Overlapping Multi-Satellite Observations for Climate Change Monitoring (Invited Presentation)

To analyze climatic trends from multi-satellite records we have to consider seasonal and diurnal cycles in the observed variables and trends, and use overlapping observations to correct for errors in instrumental calibration. The easiest case is when the calibration error are in the form of constant biases. Complications arise when one has to include calibration nonlinearity factors. All of these problems will be discussed in the analysis of climatic trend using the 25 year MSU/AMSU mid-tropospheric temperature observations from the 14 polar orbiting satellites. It is shown that nonlinear adjustment makes the satellite-observed temperature trend totally consistent with the temperature trend from surface observations. This same approach can be applied to other multi-satellite records.