Extended Abstract (3.7M)4.10
A Combined ScaRaB-ERBS Data Product
Kathryn A. Bush, SAIC, Hampton, VA; and G. L. Smith and T. Wong
The first Scanner for Radiation Budget (ScaRaB), a cooperative project of France, Russia, and Germany, flew aboard the Russian operational weather satellite Meteor-3/7 and produced high quality broadband measurements of the Earth's reflected solar radiation (SWR) and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) from March 1994 though February 1995. The Meteor-3/7 was launched on January 24, 1994 into a 1200 km polar orbit with a posigrade inclination of 82 degrees. This orbit precesses through all local times in about seven months. As a consequence, for some months the orbit is oriented such that not all latitudes are sampled during daylight hours, so that there are no measurements of solar radiation at these latitudes. Also, during some months Meteor-3/7 flew in a near-terminator orbit so that the ScaRaB instrument lacked both daytime and nighttime measurements. This sampling geometry creates problems when averaging over the diurnal cycle to obtain daily-averaged OLR. Consequently, for some regions there are months when it is not possible to compute monthly means of both OLR and SWR
The 15-year data set from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) wide field-of-view (WFOV) radiometer aboard the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) includes the ScaRaB-1 time period. The ERBS was launched on October 4, 1984 into a 611 km orbit with an inclination of 57 degrees. This orbit precesses through all local times every 72 days and the ERBE instrument has temporal sampling problems similar to those of the ScaRaB-1 instrument. However, when measurements from both instruments are combined into a single data product, it is possible to compute a set of monthly means which is more nearly complete than would be possible from either instrument alone. We use a modification of the ERBE data processing software to produce a combined ScaRaB-ERBS data product. The ScaRaB project produced instantaneous averages for 2.5 degree regions, while the smallest spatial resolution for regional averages from the ERBS WFOV data is 5 degrees. Thus the first step in producing our combined product is to nest the ScaRaB 2.5 degree regions into 5.0 degree regions. We describe the results of combining the ScaRaB-1 and ERBS measurements to provide monthly-mean regional results.
Session 4, Assimilation and Analysis
Tuesday, 15 January 2002, 2:00 PM-5:15 PM
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