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| Microwave Sounding Unit | |
|---|---|
| Name | Microwave Sounding Unit |
| Applications | Atmospheric remote sensing, climate monitoring, weather forecasting |
Microwave Sounding Unit
The Microwave Sounding Unit was a series of microwave radiometers deployed on polar-orbiting satellites to measure atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles using radiometric emission in the microwave spectrum. Developed for operational meteorology and climate monitoring, the instrument contributed to numerical weather prediction, climate trend detection, and atmospheric research through long-term datasets derived from satellites and processing centers.
The instrument family provided vertically sensitive radiances from channels sensitive to oxygen and water vapor emission, enabling linkage of observed brightness temperatures to atmospheric state variables measured by radiosondes, dropsondes, sondes from agencies such as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, European Space Agency, Japan Meteorological Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and reanalysis centers like European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Its heritage influenced designs by contractors and laboratories including Hughes Aircraft Company, Ball Aerospace, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Raytheon Technologies, and national laboratories such as Los Alamos National Laboratory and National Center for Atmospheric Research. The record from Microwave Sounding Unit instruments intersected with landmark datasets and programs including Global Climate Observing System, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Research Unit, Hadley Centre, and operational suites like Global Observing System.
The instrument architecture combined antenna subsystems, quasi-optical radiometers, bandpass filters, and cryogenic or room-temperature detectors developed with components from firms and centers including RCA Corporation, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and California Institute of Technology. It measured radiances at discrete microwave frequencies tied to molecular absorption lines of oxygen and water vapor that relate to atmospheric pressure and temperature layers; these choices drew on spectroscopy from groups such as National Institute of Standards and Technology and theoretical work by researchers at Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The scanning mechanism and calibration loads were engineered with heritage from missions like TIROS, NOAA Polar Operational Environmental Satellites, Nimbus, Metop, and Aqua; spacecraft integration involved teams at Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and European Space Research and Technology Centre. Operational principles exploited radiative transfer equations used in inversion frameworks developed at University of Oxford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, and University of Reading.
Data products included calibrated brightness temperatures, channel intercalibrated radiance time series, and retrieved temperature and humidity profiles produced by algorithm centers such as NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, EUMETSAT, Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and academic teams at University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Colorado Boulder, and University of Maryland. Retrieval methods ranged from linear regression and optimal estimation developed by authors connected to Roger Daley, C. D. Rodgers, and work at Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System to variational assimilation used at ECMWF and NCEP. Intercomparison projects and intercalibration efforts involved institutions like World Meteorological Organization, International TOVS Working Group, Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, and research groups at Monash University and University of Reading.
Microwave Sounding Unit datasets supported weather forecasting at centers such as Met Office, Canadian Meteorological Centre, Japan Meteorological Agency, and Australian Bureau of Meteorology and informed seasonal forecasts at European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Climate applications included trend detection in tropospheric and lower-stratospheric temperatures evaluated by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments and analyses by teams at National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NOAA Climate Program Office, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Studies of phenomena like El Niño–Southern Oscillation, Madden–Julian Oscillation, Arctic amplification, tropical cyclogenesis, and stratospheric warming used MSU-derived indices and products integrated with observations from Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit, Special Sensor Microwave/Imager, Global Precipitation Measurement, and in situ platforms including Argo (oceanography), radiosonde, and buoy networks.
Calibration strategies combined internal warm/cold load references, vicarious calibration against cosmic background and Moon observations, and inter-satellite cross-calibration coordinated by NOAA, EUMETSAT, and NASA. Validation campaigns were executed with support from field programs and institutions like ARM Climate Research Facility, Atmospheric Radiation Measurement, Goddard Space Flight Center, NOAA Air Resources Laboratory, European Space Agency ERS programmes, and academic groups at University of Reading and University of Colorado Boulder. Error characteristics included channel-dependent noise-equivalent temperature differences, beam-filling effects, and biases arising from orbital drift and diurnal sampling analogous to issues addressed by teams at University of Alabama in Huntsville, Columbia University, and Rutgers University. Intercomparison and homogenization efforts were led by Remote Sensing Systems, NOAA STAR, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and research consortia linked to University of Bremen and National Center for Atmospheric Research.
The instrument series flew on platforms operated by agencies including NOAA, NASA, EUMETSAT, JAXA, and contributed to mission suites like TIROS-N, NOAA-6, NOAA-7, NOAA-9, NOAA-11, NOAA-12, NOAA-14, and descendants integrated into Metop and Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership. Development milestones involved contractors and labs such as Hughes Aircraft Company, Ball Aerospace, NASA Goddard, and programmatic oversight from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Department of Commerce (United States). The historical archive forms part of climate records curated by centers including NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, NASA Distributed Active Archive Center, European Space Agency, and academic repositories at University of Reading and University of East Anglia.
Limitations included coarse vertical resolution relative to sounding instruments like Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer, sensitivity to surface emissivity over land, and contamination by precipitation and cloud liquid water—issues studied by teams at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Caltech, University of Washington, and Purdue University. Future developments built on MSU heritage include advanced microwave sounders such as ATMS (Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder), hyperspectral microwave instruments, and synergistic constellation concepts proposed by Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, GEO network planning groups, and research initiatives at NASA JPL, European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, and universities including Stanford University and MIT. Continued efforts in intercalibration, combined data assimilation, and enhanced retrieval algorithms engage communities at World Meteorological Organization, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and national agencies to sustain climate-quality records.
Category:Satellite meteorology instruments