Twelve‐hour daytime totals of surface sensible heat flux were estimated using geostationary satellite measured surface “skin” temperatures and models of the land surface and the planetary boundary layer for 4 days in August 1989 at the First International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Field Experiment site. During this period in August a rapid “dry down” occurred in which daytime surface sensible heat flux totals, as estimated from the surface flux measurements, rose from approximately 2–4 MJ m−2 to 6–9 MJ m−2 within the span of a few days. In this period the daytime surface temperature range as measured from the geostationary satellite rose by several degrees Celsius. The standard errors of estimate comparing satellite‐derived sensible heating totals with surface measurements were 0.93 and 1.43 MJ m−2, respectively, using surface roughness length estimates of 1 and 5 cm in the planetary boundary layer model.
The Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) is a 20channel microwave satellite remote-sensing system comprising two separate radiometers, which is slated to be launched on NOAA polar-orbiting satellites beginning in 1994. With the AMSU will come improvements in remote sounding of the atmosphere and estimation of atmospheric and surface physical characteristics (rain and cloud water, snow and ice cover, etc.) gained through application of the dramatic improvements in microwave technology that have taken place in the past 20 years. In this work we describe prelaunch work designed to evaluate the remote-sensing information that will be available with the launch of the AMSU.
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