Operational vicarious calibration of the MSG/SEVIRI solar channels

The paper presents a vicarious calibration method based on calculated radiances that will be applied to the solar channels of the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager instrument on-board Meteosat Second Generation satellites. The estimated error on the calculated radiance over three calibration target types (sea surface, stable bright desert and high level opaque cloud) is about 5 to 10%. The calibration accuracy can further be improved applying the proposed calibration scheme to a large number of images. Quality control mechanisms have been developed to verify the result consistency. These mechanisms permit to apply the method consistently and automatically on a regular basis. Preliminary results, based on Meteosat data, show an accuracy better than 10%. (C) 2001 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.