SSMIS Underflight Studies

The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) successfully launched the first of five Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) on 18 October 2003. The SSMIS is a joint United States Air Force/Navy multi-channel passive microwave sensor that combines and extends the current imaging and sounding capabilities of three separate DMSP microwave sensors, SSM/T, SSM/T-2 and SSM/I. Built by Northrup-Grumman Electronic Systems, the SSMIS measures the earth’s upwelling partially-polarized radiances in 24 channels covering a wide range of frequencies (19 – 183 GHz) in an SSM/I-type conical scan geometry (53 degree earth incidence angle), maintaining uniform spatial resolution, polarization purity and common fields-of-view for all channels across the entire swath.

The DMSP System Program Office (SPO) in conjunction with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR PMW 150) is now conducting a comprehensive end-to-end calibration/validation (Cal/Val) of the first SSMIS. The Naval Research Laboratory has been selected to lead the technical efforts of the Cal/Val with support and guidance from DMSP and SPAWAR.

The SSMIS Lower Atmosphere Sounding (LAS) capabilities offer a unique opportunity to provide real-time temperature and moisture profile observations. Special campaigns for the collection of accurate temperature and moisture profiles are planned for the SSMIS LAS Cal/Val program. These data include but are not limited to, operational radiosondes, lidar, extensive aircraft dropsonde campaigns and special NOAA ship observations. Atmospheric temperature and moisture analyses from the U.S. Navy Operational Global Atmosphere Prediction System (NOGAPS), the U.S. Navy Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Prediction System (COAMPS), the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), the United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO) and the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) will be used to calibrate the SSMIS LAS channels and retrieved temperature profiles.

The SSMIS Upper Atmosphere Sounding (UAS) capabilities offer a unique opportunity to provide real-time stratospheric and mesospheric temperature observations. However, supporting measurements for the calibration and validation of the sensor and retrieved soundings are quite limited in comparison to tropospheric and lower stratospheric sounding sensors. A wide reaching combination of lidar, rocketsonde and Numerical Weather Prediction atmospheric temperature analyses will be used to calibrate the SSMIS UAS channels and retrieved temperature profiles.