Vertical Column Precipitable Water Determinations Over Terrestrial Surfaces From Avhrr Thermal Channels

Date

1990-05-20

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Eck, T.F., and B.N. Holben. “Vertical Column Precipitable Water Determinations Over Terrestrial Surfaces From Avhrr Thermal Channels.” 10th Annual International Symposium on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, May 1990, 847–49. https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS.1990.688622.

Rights

This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
Public Domain

Abstract

Knowledge of the total vertical column water vapor (precipitable water) is important to meteorological analyses, as a dynamic component of the atmosphere, and for remote sensing investigations due to broad and narrow water vapor absorption bands in the Near-IR and thermal bands. Recent work using NOAA-9 daylight overpass AVHRR thermal band temperature differences (split window) over areas of known aerosol optical thickness and precipitable water in the African Sahel have shown a very high correlation (r²~. 9 between precipitable water and the split window temperature difference) for aerosol optical thicknesses less than 0.4 in the visible band. Using this relationship, an approach is described which can possibly be applied for operational retrieval of precipitable water for the Sahel.