Intercalibration of Broadband Geostationary Imagers Using AIRS

Geostationary simultaneous nadir observations (GSNOs) are collected for Earth Observing System (EOS) Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on board Aqua and a global array of geostationary imagers. The imagers compared in this study are on (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites) GOES-10, GOES-11, GOES-12, (Meteorological Satellites) Meteosat-8, Meteosat-9, Multifunctional Transport Satellite-IR (MTSAT-IR), and Fenguyun-2C (FY-2C). It has been shown that a single polar-orbiting satellite can be used to intercalibrate any number of geostationary imagers. Using a high-spectral-resolution infrared sensor, in this case AIRS, brings this method closer to an absolute reckoning of imager calibration accuracy based on laboratory measurements of the instrument’s spectral response. An intercalibration method is presented here, including a method of compensating for AIRS’ spectral gaps, along with results for approximately 22 months of comparisons. The method appears to work very well for most bands, but there are still unresolved issues with bands that are not spectrally covered well by AIRS (such as the water vapor bands and the 8.7-mm band on Meteosat). To the first approximation, most of the bands on the world’s geostationary imagers are reasonably well calibrated—that is, they compare to within 1 K of a standard reference (AIRS). The next step in the evolution of geostationary intercalibration is to use Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) data. IASI is a high-spectral-resolution instrument similar to AIRS but without significant spectral gaps.