ASSESSMENT OF TOTAL COLUMN WATER VAPOUR PRODUCTS FROM ERS AND ENVISAT MISSIONS

摘要

Total column water vapour (TCWV) is a very important product not only for meteorological applications but also for several remote sensing applications where it is needed for the correction of satellite products that are affected by the existence of the water vapour in the atmosphere like radar altimetry measurements. Microwave Radiometer (MWR), which is part of the altimetry suite on-board ERS-1, ERS-2, Envisat and the forthcoming Sentinel-3 provides long-term continuous observation time series TCWV (except for the period from the loss of Envisat in April 2012 till the availability of Sentinel-3A data in early 2016). The project “ERS/Envisat MWR Recalibration (EMiR)” which has been conducted within the framework of ESA Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) programme with the aim of providing high quality climate data record of TCWV. EMiR water vapour product is verified against the ECMWF Interim Reanalysis (ERA-Interim) with a focus on the long-term consistency. Preliminary results are presented here.