GPM AMSU-B: NOAA 17 Satellite Microwave Brightness Temperatures

NOAA 17 satellite data provides calibrated brightness temperatures from the AMSU-B passive microwave instrument. The Level 1C product includes scan time, latitude, longitude, and intercalibrated brightness temperature across five channels, recalibrated to a common basis for consistent precipitation retrieval. Version 07 data is maintained by NASA's GES DISC.

Use Cases

• Deriving precipitation products based on intercalibrated brightness temperatures.
• Analyzing atmospheric water vapor profiles based on the 183 GHz channel data.
• Cross-calibrating satellite microwave instruments based on the common recalibration basis.
• Studying scan geometry and sampling patterns based on the 90 observations per scan and 2.667-second scan period.

Strengths

• Data is recalibrated to a common basis, which likely improves consistency for derived precipitation products.
• Swath S1 contains observations sampled 90 times along the scan, providing detailed spatial sampling.
• Version 07 is the current and superseding version, indicating ongoing maintenance.

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 02:09:29.630737; freshness should be verified.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Passive microwave radiometer observations from the AMSU-B instrument on the NOAA 17 satellite.

Geography

Global swath coverage from satellite orbits.