THE MICROWAVE RADIOMETER ABOARD ERS-1 .2. VALIDATION OF THE GEOPHYSICAL PRODUCTS

The ERS-1 microwave radiometer was designed to correct the satellite a ltimeter 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 profile s over ocean. Differences were analyzed by similarly comparing calcula ted brightness temperatures with SSM/I data, for the same meteorologic al data set, extracted from ECMWF (European Center for Medium range We ather Forecasting) analyses. The calibration of the two channels of th e 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 va por and altimeter path corrections over a one-year period.