Construction of the RSS V3.2 Lower-Tropospheric Temperature Dataset from the MSU and AMSU Microwave Sounders

Abstract

Measurements made by microwave sounding instruments provide a multidecadal record of atmospheric temperature in several thick atmospheric layers. Satellite measurements began in late 1978 with the launch of the first Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) and have continued to the present via the use of measurements from the follow-on series of instruments, the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU). The weighting function for MSU channel 2 is centered in the middle troposphere but contains significant weight in the lower stratosphere. To obtain an estimate of tropospheric temperature change that is free from stratospheric effects, a weighted average of MSU channel 2 measurements made at different local zenith angles is used to extrapolate the measurements toward the surface, which results in a measurement of changes in the lower troposphere. In this paper, a description is provided of methods that were used to extend the MSU method to the newer AMSU channel 5 measurements and to intercalibrate the results from the different types of satellites. Then, satellite measurements are compared to results from homogenized radiosonde datasets. The results are found to be in excellent agreement with the radiosonde results in the northern extratropics, where the majority of the radiosonde stations are located.