NOAA-17 AMSU-A Satellite Microwave Sounding Swath Data

AMSU-A is a 15-channel passive microwave radiometer providing vertical profiles of atmospheric temperature and moisture from the surface to approximately 45 km altitude. Data from the NOAA-17 satellite, launched in June 2002, is stored in daily HDF-EOS files containing channel brightness temperatures, latitude, longitude, and time arrays for each orbit. The dataset is produced by NASA and NOAA as part of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System.

Use Cases

• Validating numerical weather prediction models using 15-channel brightness temperature measurements.
• Analyzing long-term atmospheric temperature trends from the surface to the stratosphere using the vertical profile data.
• Studying global moisture distribution and water vapor profiles for climate research.
• Assimilating geolocated swath data (latitude, longitude, time) into atmospheric reanalysis products.

Strengths

• Provides 15 distinct spectral channels for detailed atmospheric temperature and moisture profiling.
• Data is structured in a standard geospatial format (HDF-EOS) with daily temporal aggregation.
• Instrument is part of an operational satellite system (NPOESS/NOAA), indicating a calibrated, sustained data source.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific license terms are not provided across platforms.
• There is a significant conflict in reported freshness, with one source listing a 2026 update and another a 2003 update.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Collection Method

Collected by the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) radiometer aboard the NOAA 17 polar-orbiting satellite.

Time Range

Data collection began after the NOAA-17 launch on 24 June 2002; end date is unspecified.

Freshness

2026-03-13 06:17:44.941881

Geography

Global coverage from polar-orbiting satellite swaths.