THE BEAM FILLING ERROR IN THE NIMBUS 5 ELECTRONICALLY SCANNING MICROWAVE RADIOMETER OBSERVATIONS OF GLOBAL ATLANTIC TROPICAL EXPERIMENT RAINFALL Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • A comparison of rain rates retrieved from the Nimbus 5 electronically scanning microwave radiometer (ESMR 5) brightness temperatures and observed from shipboard radars during GATE phase I shows that the beam filling error is the major source of discrepancy between the two. When averaged over a large scene (the GATE radar array, 400 km in diameter), the beam filling error is quite stable, being 50% of the observed rain rate. This suggests the simple procedure of multiplying retrieved rain rates by 2 (correction factor). A statistical model of the beam filling error is developed by envisioning an idealized instrument field-of-view that encompasses an entire gamma distribution of rain rates. A modeled correction factor near 2 is found for rain rate and temperature characteristics consistent with GATE conditions. -from Authors

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES

author list (cited authors)

  • SHORT, D. A., & NORTH, G. R.

citation count

  • 59

complete list of authors

  • SHORT, DA||NORTH, GR

publication date

  • February 1990