Keywords:meteorology; remote sounding; water vapor; gridded
Publisher:Pasadena, CA : Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2005.
Citation:American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, San Diego, California, January, 2005
Abstract:
The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) consists of a suite of instruments on board the Aqua spacecraft which retrieve atmospheric parameters over the globe at radiosonde quality on a daily basis in non-precipitating fields of view with less than 80% cloud cover. Although quantitative global measurements of water vapor have been available since the 1980's, the vertical resolution of these measurements was very coarse. AIRS provides global coverage amounting to 324,000 precipitable water vapor profiles with spatial resolution at nadir of 45 km and a vertical resolution in the troposphere of 2 km.