Using Multiple Instrument Measurements To Assess Integrated Water Vapor Path From A Multispectral Microwave Radiometer

Microwave Radiometers are mounted on satellites and the ground to collect climatological data. While they provide very useful information about temperature, RH, and water vapor, radiometers should periodically be cross-referenced with other instruments to gauge the veracity of the data. Data available from the closest ground-based GPS receivers and sun photometers was plotted alongside, and used to analyze, data from City College's Microwave Radiometer. Observing all of the data together in a graph allows one to see some of the general advantages and disadvantages of each instrument. The GPS-MET seems to be accurate continuously, while AERONET data is not even available during the night and while there is cloud cover. Lastly, the microwave radiometer collects data continuously, but at certain times the data are about five times higher than the expected values, based on the values given by GPS-MET and AERONET. A good explanation for those spikes is rainfall. For times when it is not raining, the microwave radiometer at City College is sufficiently close to the water vapor data collected by City College's sunphotometer and data from Union, New Jersey and East Moriches, New York, as proven by statistical tools.