Remote sensing of atmospheric water vapor, liquid water, and wind speed at the ocean surface by passive microwave techniques from the Nimbus 5 satellite

Abstract

The microwave brightness temperature measurements for Nimbus 5 electrically scanned microwave radiometer (ESMR) and Nimbus‐E microwave spectrometer (NEMS) are used to retrieve the atmospheric water vapor, liquid water, and wind speed by a quasi‐statistical retrieval technique. It is shown that the brightness temperature can be utilized to yield these parameters under various weather conditions. Observations at 19.35, 22.235, and 31.4 GHz were input to the regression equations. The retrieved values of these parameters for portions of two Nimbus 5 orbits are presented. Then comparison between the retrieved parameters and the available observations on the total water vapor content and the surface wind speed are made. The estimated errors for retrieval are approximately ±0.15 g/cm 2 for water vapor content, ±6.5 mg/cm 2 for liquid water content, and ±6.6 m/s for surface wind speed.