GPM AMSU-B Satellite Brightness Temperatures for Precipitation Analysis

Version 07 recalibrates brightness temperatures from the AMSU-B passive microwave instrument on NOAA satellites to a common basis. The Level 1C swath includes scan time, location, status, quality, angles, and intercalibrated brightness temperatures across five channels. NASA provides this data through the GES DISC platform.

Use Cases

• Developing consistent precipitation products based on intercalibrated brightness temperatures.
• Analyzing atmospheric water vapor profiles using the 183.31 GHz channels.
• Comparing microwave spectral signatures across the 89.0 GHz and 150.0 GHz channels.
• Studying scan geometry and incidence angles for satellite observation quality assessment.

Strengths

• Data recalibrated to a common basis for consistency across precipitation products.
• Swath includes five specific microwave channels (89.0, 150.0, and three 183.31 GHz variants).
• Version 07 supersedes older versions, indicating ongoing quality improvement.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last updated 2026-03-13 02:09:46.566261; freshness should be verified.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Passive microwave instrument (AMSU-B) observations from NOAA satellites.

Geography

Global swath coverage from satellite orbits.