TROPICS Pathfinder: Orbital Microwave Brightness Temperatures

The TROPICS Pathfinder satellite provides orbital data on atmospheric temperature, humidity, cloud ice, and precipitation structure. Its Millimeter-wave Sounder (TMS) uses channels near 118.75 GHz, 183 GHz, 90 GHz, and 205 GHz to generate profiles and imagery. Each netCDF file contains a granule of data with 81 spots and approximately 2880 scans, representing an orbit's worth of observations.

Use Cases

• Analyzing three-dimensional temperature profiles using seven channels near the 118.75-GHz oxygen absorption line
• Studying water vapor profiles using three channels near the 183-GHz water vapor absorption line
• Measuring precipitation by combining imagery from a 90 GHz channel with higher-resolution water vapor channels
• Detecting cloud-sized ice particles using a single channel near 205 GHz

Strengths

• Data is produced from a dedicated satellite constellation mission designed for high-temporal-resolution observations
• Each data granule provides approximately 2880 scans across 81 spots, offering detailed orbital coverage

Limitations

• Key metadata such as exact row count, column names, and dataset size is unavailable across all sources
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' or 'None'
• The dataset's provenance is limited to the Pathfinder satellite, preceding the full six-satellite constellation

Provenance

Source

GES_DISC (according to one platform)

Collection Method

Data gathered by the TROPICS Pathfinder satellite's TMS passive microwave spectrometer

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-04-09 21:34:12.446140 according to two platforms

Geography

Observations likely focus on tropical regions, given the mission's goal of investigating tropical cyclones