1. In the past thirty five years NOAA, with help from NASA, has established a remote sensing capability on polar and geostationary platforms that has proven useful in monitoring and predicting severe weather such as tornadic outbreaks, tropical cyclones, and flash floods in the short term, and climate trends indicated by sea surface temperatures, biomass burning, and cloud cover in the longer term. This has become possible first with the visible and infrared window imagery of the 1970s and has been augmented with the temperature and moisture sounding capability of the 1980s. The imagery from the NOAA satellites, especially the time continuous observations from geostationary instruments, dramatically enhanced our ability to understand atmospheric cloud motions and to predict severe thunderstorms. These data were almost immediately incorporated into operational procedures. Use of sounder data in the operational weather systems is more recently coming of age. The polar orbiting sounders are filling important data voids at synoptic scales. Applications include temperature and moisture analyses for weather prediction, analysis of atmospheric stability, estimation of tropical cyclone intensity and position, and global analyses of clouds. The Advanced TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (ATOVS) includes both infrared and microwave observations with the latter helping considerably to alleviate the influence of clouds for all weather soundings. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) Imager and Sounder have been used to develop procedures for retrieving atmospheric temperature, moisture, and wind at hourly intervals in the northern hemisphere. Temporal and spatial changes in atmospheric moisture and stability are improving severe storm warnings. Atmospheric flow fields are helping to improve hurricane trajectory forecasting. Applications of these NOAA data also extend to the climate programs; archives from the last fifteen years offer important information about the effects of aerosols and greenhouse gases and possible trends in global temperature.
This talk will indicate the present capabilities and foreshadow some of the developments anticipated in the next twenty years.
Quick Review of Remote Sensing Basic Theory Paolo Antonelli (Material Provided by Paul Menzel) CIMSS University of Wisconsin-Madison Benevento, June 2007

2. Radiative Transfer Equation
in the IR
Visible
(Reflective Bands)
Infrared
(Emissive Bands)

3. Relevant Material in Applications of Meteorological Satellites
CHAPTER 2 - NATURE OF RADIATION
Remote Sensing of Radiation
Basic Units
2.3 Definitions of Radiation
2.5 Related Derivations
CHAPTER 3 - ABSORPTION, EMISSION, REFLECTION, AND SCATTERING
3.1 Absorption and Emission
3.2 Conservation of Energy
3.3 Planetary Albedo
3.4 Selective Absorption and Emission
3.7 Summary of Interactions between Radiation and Matter 3-6
3.8 Beer's Law and Schwarzchild's Equation 3-7
Atmospheric Scattering
The Solar Spectrum
3.11 Composition of the Earth's Atmosphere
Atmospheric Absorption and Emission of Solar Radiation 3-11
3.13 Atmospheric Absorption and Emission of Thermal Radiation 3-12
Atmospheric Absorption Bands in the IR Spectrum
Atmospheric Absorption Bands in the Microwave Spectrum 3-14
Remote Sensing Regions
CHAPTER 5 - THE RADIATIVE TRANSFER EQUATION (RTE)
Derivation of RTE
5.10 Microwave Form of RTE

4. Energy conservation
 + a + r = 1
=B(Ts) T
 + a + r = 1

5. Simple case with no atmosphere and opaque cloud
Tc=220 K
B=B(Tc) 
cloud    
B=B(Ts)
surface
Ts=300 K

6.        Simple case with no atmosphere and semi-trasparent cloud
B=B(Tc)+ B(Ts) )  
=1-
Tc=220 K    
B=B(Ts)
surface
Ts=300 K

7. Radiative Transfer Equation

8. Transmittance for Window Channels
 + a + r = 1 z
close to 1
a close to 0 zN
The molecular species in the
atmosphere are not very active:
most of the photons emitted by the surface make it to the Satellite
if a is close to 0 in the atmosphere then  is close to 0, not much contribution from the atmospheric layers z2 z1 1 

9. Trasmittance for Absorption Channelsz
Absorption Channel:
 close to 0
a close to 1 zN
One or more molecular species in the
atmosphere is/are very active:
most of the photons emitted by the surface will not make it to the Satellite (they will be absorbed)
if a is close to 1 in the atmosphere then  is close to 1, most of the observed energy comes from one or more of the uppermost atmospheric layers z2 z1 1 

10. Spectral Characteristics of
Atmospheric Transmission and Sensing Systems

11. Weighting Functions zN zN z2 z2 z1 z1 1 
d/dz

12. MODIS IR Spectral Bands
This slide shows an observed infrared spectrum of the earth thermal emission of radiance to space. The earth surface Planck blackbody - like radiation at 295 K is severely attenuated in some spectral regions. Around the absorbing bands of the constituent gases of the atmosphere (CO2 at 4.3 and 15.0 um, H20 at 6.3 um, and O3 at 9.7 um), vertical profiles of atmospheric parameters can be derived. Sampling in the spectral region at the center of the absorption band yields radiation from the upper levels of the atmosphere (e.g. radiation from below has already been absorbed by the atmospheric gas); sampling in spectral regions away from the center of the absorption band yields radiation from successively lower levels of the atmosphere. Away from the absorption band are the windows to the bottom of the atmosphere. Surface temperatures of 296 K are evident in the 11 micron window region of the spectrum and tropopause emissions of 220 K in the 15 micron absorption band. As the spectral region moves toward the center of the CO2 absorption band, the radiation temperature decreases due to the decrease of temperature with altitude in the lower atmosphere.
IR remote sensing (e.g. HIRS and GOES Sounder) currently covers the portion of the spectrum that extends from around 3 microns out to about 15 microns. Each measurement from a given field of view (spatial element) has a continuous spectrum that may be used to analyze the earth surface and atmosphere. Until recently, we have used “chunks” of the spectrum (channels over selected wavelengths) for our analysis. In the near future, we will be able to take advantage of the very high spectral resolution information contained within the 3-15 micron portion of the spectrum. From the polar orbiting satellites, horizontal resolutions on the order of 10 kilometers will be available, and depending on the year, we may see views over the same area as frequently as once every 4 hours (assuming 3 polar satellites with interferometers). With future geostationary interferometers, it may be possible to view at 4 kilometer resolution with a repeat frequency of once every 5 minutes to once an hour, depending on the area scanned and spectral resolution and signal to noise required for given applications.

13. MODIS absorption bands
H2O O3
CO2
CO2
CO2
CO2
H2O
MODIS absorption bands

14. Emission, Absorption
Blackbody radiation B represents the upper limit to the amount of radiation that a real substance may emit at a given temperature for a given wavelength.
Emissivity  is defined as the fraction of emitted radiation R to Blackbody radiation,
 = R /B .
In a medium at thermal equilibrium, what is absorbed is emitted (what goes in comes out) so a =  .
Thus, materials which are strong absorbers at a given wavelength are also strong emitters at that wavelength; similarly weak absorbers are weak emitters.

15. Transmittance
Transmission through an absorbing medium for a given wavelength is governed by the number of intervening absorbing molecules (path length u) and their absorbing power (k) at that wavelength. Beer’s law indicates that transmittance decays exponentially with increasing path length
- k u (z)
 (z   ) = e 
where the path length is given by u (z) =   dz . z
k u is a measure of the cumulative depletion that the beam of radiation has experienced as a result of its passage through the layer and is often called the optical depth .
Realizing that the hydrostatic equation implies g  dz = - q dp
where q is the mixing ratio and  is the density of the atmosphere, then
p k u (p)
u (p) =  q g-1 dp and  (p  o ) = e . o

16. Emission, Absorption, Reflection, and Scattering
If a, r, and  represent the fractional absorption, reflectance, and transmittance, respectively, then conservation of energy says
a + r +  = 1 .
For a blackbody a = 1, it follows that r = 0 and  = 0 for blackbody radiation. Also, for a perfect window  = 1, a = 0 and r = 0. For any opaque surface  = 0, so radiation is either absorbed or reflected a + r = 1.
At any wavelength, strong reflectors are weak absorbers (i.e., snow at visible wavelengths), and weak reflectors are strong absorbers (i.e., asphalt at visible wavelengths).

17. Radiative Transfer Equation
The radiance leaving the earth-atmosphere system sensed by a satellite borne radiometer is the sum of radiation emissions from the earth-surface and each atmospheric level that are transmitted to the top of the atmosphere. Considering the earth's surface to be a blackbody emitter (emissivity equal to unity), the upwelling radiance intensity, I, for a cloudless atmosphere is given by the expression
I = sfc B( Tsfc) (sfc - top)  layer B( Tlayer) (layer - top)
layers
where the first term is the surface contribution and the second term is the atmospheric contribution to the radiance to space.

18. When reflection from the earth surface is also considered, the Radiative Transfer Equation for infrared radiation can be written o
I = sfc B(Ts) (ps) +  B(T(p)) F(p) [d(p)/ dp] dp ps
where
F(p) = { 1 + (1 - ) [(ps) / (p)]2 }
The first term is the spectral radiance emitted by the surface and attenuated by the atmosphere, often called the boundary term and the second term is the spectral radiance emitted to space by the atmosphere directly or by reflection from the earth surface.
The atmospheric contribution is the weighted sum of the Planck radiance contribution from each layer, where the weighting function is [ d(p) / dp ]. This weighting function is an indication of where in the atmosphere the majority of the radiation for a given spectral band comes from.

19. Earth emitted spectra overlaid on Planck function envelopes
CO2
H20
CO2

20. Weighting Functions Longwave CO2 14.7 1 680 CO2, strat temp
CO2, upper trop temp
CO2, mid trop temp
CO2, lower trop temp
H2O, lower trop moisture
H2O, dirty window
Midwave H2O & O3
window
O3, strat ozone
H2O, lower mid trop moisture
H2O, mid trop moisture
H2O, upper trop moisture

21. Conclusion
Radiative Transfer Equation (IR): models the propagation of terrestrial emitted energy through the atmosphere