Publication Abstracts

Rossow et al. 1992

Rossow, W.B., Y. Desormeaux, C.L. Brest, and A. Walker, 1992: International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Radiance Calibration Report. WMO/TD 520. World Climate Research Programme.

The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) was established in 1982 as part of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), jointly sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), to collect a globally uniform satellite radiance dataset and to derive from it a climatology of cloud properties that could be used to improve climate models (Schiffer and Rossow 1983).

The ISCCP radiance data are obtained from the imaging radiometers on a suite of operational weather satellites, which have in common a narrowband spectral channel at about 0.6 μ, near the peak of the solar spectrum, and one in the atmosphere's thermal opacity "window" near 11 μ. Some of these radiometers have additional channels. The spatial resolution of the original images ranges between 1-4 km (visible channel) and between 4-11 km (infrared channel), but the ISCCP Stage B3 data are reduced to the infrared resolution and sampled to a pixel spacing of about 30 km. Imaging frequency (for a specific low latitude location) varies from 48 to 14 times per day for geostationary satellites to twice daily at the equator for each polar orbiting satellite, but the ISCCP Stage B3 data are sampled once every three hours (except for polar orbiter data). Currently operating satellite systems are the geostationary METEOSAT, GOES, GMS and INSAT and the NOAA (TIROS-N) polar orbiters.

This document describes the radiance calibrations used for all ISCCP Stage B3 data for the period July 1983 through June 1991 (Schiffer and Rossow 1985; Rossow et al. 1987; Brest and Rossow 1992; Desormeaux et al. 1992). Calibration is reported in three stages, called nominal, normalized and absolute. Equations and tables in the following sections define each of these calibrations.

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BibTeX Citation

@misc{ro08000d,
  author={Rossow, W. B. and Desormeaux, Y. and Brest, C. L. and Walker, A.},
  title={International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Radiance Calibration Report},
  year={1992},
  publisher={World Climate Research Programme},
  address={Geneva, Switzerland},
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - RPRT
ID  - ro08000d
AU  - Rossow, W. B.
AU  - Desormeaux, Y.
AU  - Brest, C. L.
AU  - Walker, A.
PY  - 1992
BT  - International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Radiance Calibration Report
PB  - World Climate Research Programme
CY  - Geneva, Switzerland
ER  -

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