No abstract

Eleven data sets where water-vapor winds were obtained from the GOES-5 6.7-micrometer measurement over the United States are compared with rawinsondes. Over 2000 point comparisons are made for: a) an arbitrary height assignment of 400 mb; and b) a height assignment determined by matching the measured brightness temperature to the temperature structure represented in the LFM (Limited Area Fine Mesh) analysis. It is shown that the water vapor winds provide uniform horizontal coverage of midlevel flow with high accuracy (8 mps vector RMS). Furthermore, the radiometric height assignment significantly improves the accuracy.

A method is presented for evaluating the fluxes of sensible and latent heating at the land surface, using satellite‐measured surface temperature changes in a composite surface layer‐mixed layer representation of the planetary boundary layer. The basic prognostic model is tested by comparison with synoptic station information at sites where surface evaporation climatology is well known. The remote sensing version of the model, using satellite‐measured surface temperature changes, is then used to quantify the sharp spatial gradient in surface heating/evaporation across the central United States. An error analysis indicates that perhaps five levels of evaporation are recognizable by these methods and that the chief cause of error is the interaction of errors in the measurement of surface temperature change with errors in the assignment of surface roughness character. Finally, two new potential methods for remote sensing of the land‐surface energy balance are suggested which will rely on space‐borne instrumentation planned for the 1990's.