Development of the HIRS Outgoing Longwave Radiation Climate Dataset

Abstract

The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) product, which NOAA has been operationally generating since 1979, is a very long data record that has been used in many applications, yet past studies have shown its limitations and several algorithm-related deficiencies. Ellingson et al. have developed the multispectral algorithm that largely improved the accuracy of the narrowband-estimated OLR as well as eliminated the problems in AVHRR. NOAA has been generating High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) OLR operationally since September 1998. In recognition of the need for a continuous and long OLR data record that would be consistent with the earth radiation budget broadband measurements in the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) era, and to provide a climate data record for global change studies, a vigorous reprocessing of the HIRS radiance for OLR derivation is necessary.This paper describes the development of the new HIRS OLR climate dataset. The HIRS level 1b data from the entire Television and Infrared Observation Satellite N-series (TIROS-N) satellites have been assembled. A new radiance calibration procedure was applied to obtain more accurate and consistent HIRS radiance measurements. The regression coefficients of the HIRS OLR algorithm for all satellites were rederived from calculations using an improved radiative transfer model. Intersatellite calibrations were performed to remove possible discontinuity in the HIRS OLR product from different satellites. A set of global monthly diurnal models was constructed consistent with the HIRS OLR retrievals to reduce the temporal sampling errors and to alleviate an orbital-drift-induced artificial trend. These steps significantly improved the accuracy, continuity, and uniformity of the HIRS monthly mean OLR time series. As a result, the HIRS OLR shows a comparable stability as in the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) nonscanner OLR measurements.HIRS OLR has superb agreement with the broadband observations from Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) and Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) in the ENSO-monitoring regions. It shows compatible ENSO-monitoring capability with the AVHRR OLR. Globally, HIRS OLR agrees with CERES with an accuracy to within 2 W m Ϫ2 and a precision of about 4 W m Ϫ2. The correlation coefficient between HIRS and CERES global monthly mean is 0.997. Regionally, HIRS OLR agrees with CERES to within 3 W m Ϫ2 with precisions better than 3 W m Ϫ2 in most places. HIRS OLR could be used for constructing climatology for applications that plan to use NPOESS ERBS and previously used AVHRR OLR observations. The HIRS monthly mean OLR data have high accuracy and precision with respect to the broadband observations of ERBE and CERES. It can be used as an independent validation data source. The uniformity and continuity of HIRS OLR time series suggest that it could be used as a reliable transfer reference for the discontinuous broadband...

Impact of the MJO on the interannual variation of the Pacific–Japan mode of the East Asian summer monsoon

“…The analyses are for boreal summer (June-August) during the period 1979-2015. We also repeated the main analyses using the daily mean OLR Climate Data Record (CDR; available at http://olr.umd.edu/; Lee et al 2004Lee et al , 2007 and obtained similar results (not shown).…”

HIRS Outgoing Longwave Radiation—Daily Climate Data Record: Application toward Identifying Tropical Subseasonal Variability

“…Vigorous validation efforts were performed for the HIRS OLR estimation technique against broadband observations derived from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) and the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) [12,13]. Details of the HIRS sensor can be found in the NOAA Polar Orbiter Data (POD) User's Guide [14], the NOAA KLM User's Guide [15], and the C-ATBD for the HIRS OLR climate data record (CDR) [16].…”

“…The HIRS OLR algorithm has been implemented to generate the NESDIS operational HIRS OLR product since September 1998, and the OLR products retrieved from operational geostationary satellites are implemented as part of the operational GOES Remote Sens. 2018, 10, 1325 3 of 13 Surface and Insolation Product (GSIP) [19]. A variant of this method has been developed for the GOES-R Advanced Baseline Imager instrument [20].…”

Climate Model–Simulated Diurnal Cycles in HIRS Clear-Sky Brightness Temperatures

“…The NOAA-14 satellite, which was long lived and had a large orbital drift during its period of operation (Lee et al 2007), is used as an example. Because NOAA-14, in common with all the HIRS satellites, is in a sun-synchronous orbit, it measures each latitude at two local times per day, once in the ascending orbit mode and once in the descending.…”