[Keyword='CONVECTIVE']
Electronically Scanned Microwave Radiometer (ESMR) Measurements Taken Onboard the NASA DC-8 During the TOGA COARE Intensive Observing Period
 Entry ID: COARE_cm_dc8.esmr

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Summary
Abstract: DATA ACCESS

The NASA/TOGA COARE Data Archive
http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/fieldexp/TOGA/

The ESMR data are available from the NASA GSFC DAAC via ftp from
ftp://disc1.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/toga_coare/aircraft/nasa_dc8/esmr

BACKGROUND

TOGA COARE was a multidisciplinary, international research effort that
investigated the scientific phenomena associated with the interaction
between the atmosphere and the ocean in the warm pool region of the
western Pacific. The field experiment phase of the program took place
from 1 November 1992 through 28 February 1993 and involved the
deployment of oceanographic ships and buoys, several ship and land
based Doppler radars, multiple low and high level aircraft equipped
with Doppler radar and other airborne sensors, as well as a variety of
surface based instruments for in situ observations.

The NASA component of TOGA COARE, while contributing directly to
overall COARE objectives, emphasized scientific objectives associated
with the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and NASA's cloud
and radiation program.

INSTRUMENT INFORMATION

The ESMR instrument, which was mounted on NASA's DC-8 aircraft for the
TOGA COARE Field Experiment, is a 19.35 GHz scanning radiometer that
measures brightness temperatures in degrees Kelvin. It was operational
during 13 mission flights of the DC-8 between 11 January and 26
February 1993 under the direction of Dr. Thomas Wilheit of Texas A & M
University.

The objective for the ESMR instrument in the TOGA COARE Campaign was to
provide observations to develop better radiative transfer models for
rainfall retrieval algorithms to be used in the development of the
TRMM research paradigm.

The ESMR radiometer is nadir-mounted in the aircraft and scans in a
plane perpendicular to the direction of flight with a swath of +/-50
degrees from nadir. Beam position (BP) 20 is at nadir during level
flight; BP 1 is 50 degrees to the left, and BP 39 is 50 degrees to the
right. The beam positions are distributed in equal divisions of the
sine of the scan angle.

When the pitch and roll of the plane are negligible, a simple
algorithm can be used to obtain the latitude and longitude at each BP.

If we define:

- BP is the beam position (integer, 1-39)
- sinBP is the sine of the scan angle of the BP
- lat and lon are the aircraft position
- ofsBP is the offset angle of the BP
- hdg is the aircraft heading
- alt is the aircraft altitude
- latBP and lonBP are the latitude and longitude of the beam position

Then execute the following calculations:

sinBP = (sin(50/57.2)*(BP-20)/19)
ofsBP = 0.1 * (sinBP/sqrt(1-sinBP*sinBP))
latBP = lat - ofsBP*sin(hdg)*alt/36000
lonBP = lon + ofsBP*cos(hdg)*alt/(cos(lat)*36000)


DATA ORGANIZATION

One data product consisting of 13 binary files of calibrated
brightness temperatures in degrees Kelvin was produced by the ESMR
instrument during the TOGA COARE Campaign. Each file contains data
from 1 flight. The ESMR data totals appproximately 12 MB in volume and
has a typical file size of approximately .8 MB. The naming convention
for ESMR files is .tbn.

The TbN data format is as follows

bytes Type variable


1-39 unsign 1 byte Brightness Temp for each BP (add 100.)
40 " Hour
41 " Minute
42 " Seconds (integer part)
43 " Hundredths of seconds
44-45 signed 2-byte Julian Day
46-47 " Latitude(integer part)
48-49 " 1/10000ths of latitude
50-51 " Longitude (integer part)
52-53 " 1/10000ths of longitude
54-55 " Altitude (tens of feet)
56-57 " Heading (tenths of degrees)
58-59 " Roll (tenths of degrees)
60-61 " Pitch (tenths of degrees)
62-64 - Empty

Note that the latitude and longitude fractions share the same sign; to
obtain either variable, simply sum the integer and fractional parts
without manipulating the signs. All of the integers are standard
MS-DOS format.


ESMR Browse Images: A series of GIF images which are 256 color
pictures of the data, made from screen shots of the data viewing
program. The GIF images are labeled with the Julian Day, hour and
minute that the data starts, in the form DDDHHMM.GIF.

The GIFs are 800x600, and can be viewed with any image viewing
application, on any platform. If you do transfer the files to another
platform, remember to transfer them in binary (8-bit) format.

There are GIF images for all of the high-priority convection legs and
days specified by Drs. Ed Zipser, Barry Nolan, and others at the
3-6 August TOGA COARE Conference in San Diego.

SOFTWARE

1) DOS Software: Read software in Turbo Pascal (RDTBNAV) was
submitted by the ESMR instrument team. The program reads a specified
record from an ESMR binary data file and displays it to the pc
screen. Program DISP_TB displays an ESMR image file to the pc screen.

Display software used by the PI in processing the data is also
available. It runs in a DOS environment and requires a Super VGA
videocard based on the Tseng chipset or a VESA standard compatible
videocard with appropriate drivers.

2) UNIX Software: Program esmr_read.c was created by the GSFC DAAC to
provide the functionality of the original Pascal read program to UNIX
users. Porting the ESMR dataset from a PC to the DAAC's Silicon
Graphics machines required a byte swap when loading 2-byte data values
into integers, an implementation-dependent feature that may not be
required on other systems. The program is self-documenting.

A validation file (ESMR.dat) displaying correct values from the first
ten records in data file 011.tbn is offered to assist UNIX users in
adapting program esmr_read.c to their environments. It resides with
the UNIX software.

Related URL
Link: GET DATA
Description: Access the TOGA COARE ESMR Data.


Geographic Coverage
 N: 10.0 S: -20.0  E: 180.0  W: 140.0

Data Set Citation
Dataset Originator/Creator: TOGA COARE
Dataset Title: Electronically Scanned Microwave Radiometer (ESMR) Measurements Taken Onboard the NASA DC-8 During the TOGA COARE Intensive Observing Period
Online Resource: http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/fieldexp/TOGA/


Temporal Coverage
Start Date: 1993-01-01
Stop Date: 1993-02-28


Location Keywords
OCEAN > PACIFIC OCEAN
GEOGRAPHIC REGION > EQUATORIAL
VERTICAL LOCATION > BOUNDARY LAYER
VERTICAL LOCATION > TROPOSPHERE


Science Keywords
ATMOSPHERE >PRECIPITATION >PRECIPITATION AMOUNT    [Definition]
ATMOSPHERE >ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION >SOLAR IRRADIANCE    [Definition]
ATMOSPHERE >ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION >SOLAR RADIATION    [Definition]
SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING >MICROWAVE >BRIGHTNESS TEMPERATURE    [Definition]
SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING >MICROWAVE >MICROWAVE IMAGERY    [Definition]
SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING >PLATFORM CHARACTERISTICS >ATTITUDE CHARACTERISTICS    [Definition]


ISO Topic Category
CLIMATOLOGY/METEOROLOGY/ATMOSPHERE
GEOSCIENTIFIC INFORMATION
IMAGERY/BASE MAPS/EARTH COVER


Platform
DC-8 >Douglas DC-8    [Information]


Instrument
ESMR >Electronic Scanning Microwave Radiometer    [Information]
RADIOMETERS    [Information]


Project
EOSDIS >Earth Observing System Data Information System    [Information]
ESIP >Earth Science Information Partners Program    [Information]
TOGA COARE >TOGA Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Response Experiment    [Information]


Keywords
AIR-SEA
AIRCRAFT
ALGORITHM
ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION
ATMOSPHERIC EXPERIMENT
AUSTRALIA
BRIGHTNESS TEMPERATURE
CDIU
COARE
CONVECTION
CONVECTIVE
DAAC
DC-8
DC8
ESMR
FTP
GIF
GSFC
IFA
IMAGES
INTENSIVE FLUX ARRAY
INTENSIVE OBSERVING PERIOD
IOP
KELVIN
MESOSCALE
METEOROLOGY
NADIR
NASA
RADIATION
RADIATIVE TRANSFER MODEL
RADIOMETER
RAINFALL
SCANNING
TOGA
TOGA COARE
TOWNSVILLE
TRMM
WARM POOL
WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN
WWW
EOSDIS


Originating Center
GSFC_DAAC


Data Center
Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (formerly Goddard DAAC), Global Change Data Center, Earth Sciences Division, Science and Exploration Directorate, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA    [Information]
Data Center URL: http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Dataset ID: esmr

Data Center Personnel
Name: GES DISC HELP DESK SUPPORT GROUP
 Phone: 301-614-5224
Fax: 301-614-5268
Email: gsfc-help-disc at lists.nasa.gov
Contact Address:
Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center
Code 610.2
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
 City: Greenbelt
Province or State: MD
Postal Code: 20771
Country: USA



Distribution
Distribution_Media: On-line


Personnel
RICK RUSSELL
Role: TECHNICAL CONTACT
Phone: (409) 845-7671
Fax: (409) 845-6331
Email: rick-russell at tamu.edu
Contact Address:
Department of Meteorology
Texas A&M University
City: College Station
Province or State: TX
Postal Code: 77843-3150
Country: USA


THOMAS T. WILHEIT
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Phone: +1 (979) 845-0176
Fax: +1 (979) 862-4466
Email: wilheit at tamu.edu
Contact Address:
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Texas A&M University
3150 TAMU
City: College Station
Province or State: TX
Postal Code: 77843-3150
Country: USA


Publications/References
Chang, A.T.C., A. Barnes, M. Glass, R. Kakar, & T.T. Wilheit, 1993:
Aircraft observations of the vertical structure of stratiform
precipitation relevant to microwave radiative
transfer. J. Appl. Meteor. 32, 1083-1091.

FIRE Project Office, 1994: NASA/TOGA COARE Science Data Workshop II,
Proceedings of a workshop held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, March
15-17, 1994. NASA Langley Research Center, Mail Stop 483, Hampton, VA
23666.

NASA TOGA COARE Project Office, 1993: Mission Summary Reports, TOGA
COARE. NASA Langley Research Center, Mail Stop 483, Hampton, VA 23666.

TOGA COARE International Project Office (TCIPO), 1992: TOGA COARE
Operations Plan, Working Version September 1992. University
Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder CO, 80307, 138 pp.

TOGA COARE International Project Office (TCIPO), 1993: TOGA COARE
Intensive Observing Period Operations Summary. University Corporation
for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80307, 505 pp.

TOGA COARE International Project Office (TCIPO), 1994: Summary Report
of the TOGA COARE International Data Workshop, Toulouse, France, 2 -
11 August 1994, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research,
Boulder, CO 80307, 170 pp.

Webster, P.J., and R. Lukas, 1992: TOGA COARE: The Coupled Ocean-
Atmosphere Response Experiment. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 73, 1377-1416.

Wilheit, T.T., A.T.C. Chang and L.S. Chiu, 1991: Retrieval of Monthly
rainfall indices from microwave radiometric measurements using
probability distribution functions. J. Atmos. Oceanic Tech., 8, 118-136.

Wilheit, T.T., et al., 1994: Algorithms for the retrieval of
rainfall from passive microwave measurements. Submitted to Reviews of
Remote Sensing.

World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), 1985: Scientific Plan for the
TOGA Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment. WCRP Publications
Series, No. 3 Addendum, World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 96 pp.

Creation and Review Dates
Last DIF Revision Date: 2008-08-14

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