The microwave radiometer aboard ERS-1 .2. Validation of the geophysical products

The ERS-1 microwave radiometer was designed to correct the satellite altimeter data for the excess path delay due to tropospheric humidity. The brightness temperature calibration was tested using two radiative transfer models, applied to the same coincident meteorological profiles over ocean. Differences were analyzed by similarly comparing calculated brightness temperatures with SSM/I data, for the same meteorological data set, extracted from ECMWF (European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting) analyses. The calibration of the two channels of the ERS-1 microwave radiometer required correction of a few kelvin. The final water vapor and altimeter path delay validation was performed by comparing routine radiosonde measurements with the retrieved water vapor and altimeter path corrections over a one-year period.