NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of MSU and AMSU-A Mean Layer Temperatures, UAH Version 5.4

Resource Abstract:

This Climate Data Record (CDR) includes lower tropospheric, mid-tropospheric, and lower stratospheric temperatures over land and ocean derived from microwave radiometers on NOAA and NASA polar orbiting satellites. The temperatures are from measurements produced by Microwave Sounding Units (MSU) since 1978 and Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) since 1998 flying on NOAA polar orbiting satellites, on NASA Aqua satellite (operating since mid-1998) and on the European MetOp satellite (operating since late 2006). The instruments are cross-track through-nadir scanning externally-calibrated passive microwave radiometers. Brightness temperature measurements are derived at microwave frequencies within the 50-60 GHz oxygen absorption complex, and (in the case of AMSU-A) at a few microwave frequencies above and below that absorption complex. There are three atmospheric layers for which intermediate products are processed: (1) lower-tropospheric (TLT) deep-layer average temperature, computed as a weighted difference between view angles of AMSU-A channel 5, whose heritage comes from MSU channel 2, (2) mid-tropospheric (TMT) deep-layer temperature, computed as an average of the central portion of the scan of AMSU-A channel 5, whose heritage also comes from MSU channel 2, and (3) lower-stratospheric (TLS) deep layer temperatures, computed from the central portion of the scan of AMSU channel 9, whose heritage comes from MSU channel 4. This CDR includes several products. The global monthly anomaly data data are averaged onto a 2.5 x 2.5 degree latitude-longitude grid for each of the three atmospheric layers. Monthly anomalies are averaged for each of the three atmospheric layers over multiple regions, including Global, hemispheric, tropic, extratropic, polar and contiguous U.S. A mean annual cycle of monthly mean layer temperatures is also included. Anomalies are deviations from 1981-2010 mean. The datasets have been converted from the native ASCII format to CF-compliant netCDF-4 format.

Citation

Title NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of MSU and AMSU-A Mean Layer Temperatures, UAH Version 5.4

alternateTitle  Mean Layer Temperatures - UAH

publication  Date   2011-09-29

Edition Version 5.4

presentationForm  imageDigital

cited responsible party - publisher

organisation Name  DOC/NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI > National Centers for Environmental Information, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce

cited responsible party - originator

organisation Name  UAH/ESSL > Earth System Science Laboratory, University of Alabama, Huntsville

position Name Physical Scientist

Contact information

Telephone

Voice +1 256-961-7763

Address

320 Sparkman Drive, Huntsville, AL, 35805 Country USA

electronic Mail Address christy@nsstc.uah.edu

cited responsible party - publisher

organisation Name  DOC/NOAA/NESDIS/NCDC > National Climatic Data Center, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce

position Name User Engagement and Services Branch

Contact information

Telephone

Voice +1 (828) 271-4800

Fax +1 (828) 271-4876

Address

151 Patton AvenueVeach-Baley Federal Building, Room 468, Asheville, NC, 28801-5001 Country USA

electronic Mail Address ncei.orders@noaa.gov

hoursOfService 8:00 - 6:00 Eastern

cited responsible party -

organisation Name  

Contact information

Linkage for online resource

name Operational Climate Data Records in the NOAA CDR Program

URL: https://ncdc.noaa.gov/cdr/operationalcdrs.html

protocol HTTP

link function information

Description Access to the published CDR data, source code, and documentation.

target application profile  Information

Topic Category:  climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere

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