Assessing Measurement Uncertainty

Project Title

Complete Uncertainty Characterization of the DISCOVER Earth System Data Records, PI: Carl Mears

Focus of this work

The purpose of this project is to perform a detailed error analysis of all ocean products from microwave radiometers provided by the DISCOVER project.  We will add uncertainty estmates to each and every measurement of surface wind speed, columnar atmospheric water vapor, columnar cloud liquid water, rain rate and sea surface temperature.  This short-term uncertainty information will be reported as an additional product.  In addition, we will estimate long term uncertainty for each product.  Both uncertainty products will be provided to users via our web page upon completion.

Project Partners

The project is a collaboration between Remote Sensing Systems, Atmospheric and Environmental Research, University of Wisconsin, and State University of New York, Albany.

Progress to date:

The algorithm to calculate uncertainty for AMSR-E is complete.  The presentatation below summarizes the method we developed:

Carl A. Mears, Kyle A. Hilburn, Deborah K. Smith, Chelle L. Gentemann, and Frank J. Wentz (2012), Adding Uncertainty Information to the Ocean Suite of ESDRs from Microwave Imaging Instruments, Abstract IN14A-06​ presented at the 2012 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 3-7 Dec.

As part of the effort to estimate the accuracy of our rain rate data, we performed a detailed comparison with other sources of rain rate data.  This work is summarized in the poster below:

Kyle A. Hilburn, Deborah K. Smith (2012).  Assessment of Remote Sensing Systems Version-7 Rain Rates. Abstract H33C-1339 presented at the 2012 Fall Meeting. AGU. San Francisco, Calif. 3-7 Dec.

This work is pertinent to the following missions:  AMSR-E, SSMI, SSMIS, WindSat, TMI

This work is applicable to the following measurements:  wind, vapor, cloud, rain, sst