DMSP SATELLITE - SSM/I DATA ATLAS

I. Jobard (CNRS, France)

Announced availability: 1 October 1994

Data Access

The hardcopy atlas "Atlas des donnees de SSM/I pour la P.O.I. de TOGA COARE" by G.L. Liberti, I. Jobard and M. Desbois (Note interne LMD no 191, Avril 1994, Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 287 pp) is available upon request from Isabelle Jobard at CNRS, France.

Background

Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP)
Each DMSP satellite monitors the atmospheric, oceanographic and solar-geophysical environment of the Earth on a twice-daily basis. The visible and infrared sensors collect images of global cloud distribution across a 3,000-km swath during both daytime and nighttime conditions. The coverage of the microwave imager and sounders is one-half the visible and infrared sensors' coverage, thus they cover the polar regions above 60 on a twice-daily basis but the equatorial region on a daily basis. The space environmental sensors record along-track plasma densities, velocities, composition and drifts.

The DMSP program operates a two-satellite constellation, thus providing complete global coverage of clouds every six hours. High- resolution data are averaged, recorded and sent to ground receiving stations once an orbit (101 minutes). Local processing prepares orbital datasets organized as a time series, restores instrumental data that were adversely affected by the ionosphere during transmission, accurately computes and checks the satellite position and provides subpixel geolocation information and/or software.

SSM/I
The SSM/I is a seven-channel, four-frequency, linearly-polarized, passive microwave radiometric system which measures atmospheric, ocean and terrain microwave brightness temperatures at 19.35, 22.235, 37.0 and 85.5 GHz. The data are used to obtain synoptic maps of critical atmospheric, oceanographic and selected land parameters on a global scale. The SSM/I archive dataset consists of antenna temperatures recorded across a 1,400-km conical scan, satellite ephemeris, earth surface positions for each pixel and instrument calibration. Electromagnetic radiation is polarized by the ambient electric field, scattered by the atmosphere and the Earth's surface, and scattered and absorbed by atmospheric water vapor, oxygen, liquid water and ice.

The SSM/I data were collected from the Block 5D-2 F11 satellite. The data were extracted from the WetNet data base with the YSELECT procedure developed at LMD.

For more information, please contact:

Isabelle Jobard
Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique du C.N.R.S.
Ecole Polytechnique
F 91128 Palaiseau Cedex
France

email: jobard@lmdx04.polytechnique.fr
Phone: (33) 1 69 33 41 52
FAX: (33) 1 69 33 30 05

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