ATMO/OPTI 656B Syllabus Spring 2009

ATMO/OPTI 656b Atmospheric Radiation and Remote Sensing

Note: ATMO/OPTI 656a is NOT a prerequisite for this semester

Desired background:

ATMO 567 Inverse Problems in Geophysics

Some programming knowledge (Matlab in particular),

Location: PAS488, T Th 1:00-2:15

Professor: E. Robert Kursinski, Office PAS 580, office phone: 621-2139, Cell: 260-8404 e-mail: kursinski@atmo.arizona.edu

Purpose and Scope of class:

This class is focused on remote sensing of the atmosphere. It could be named “Introduction to the physics and techniques of atmospheric remote sensing”. It will go into just enough radiative transfer to understand the techniques. It has some elements of a survey course because the time is insufficient to go through all approaches in detail. Some surface sensing will be included that is relevant to atmospheric remote sensing such sensing ocean surface roughness to infer near-surface winds. It will focus mostly on satellite techniques.

We will go through a subset of the techniques relevant to atmospheric science,

• The basic physics of the measurements,
• How the measurements are “inverted” to recover atmospheric variables
• Their accuracy, resolution and limitations.

We will also go through a simple introduction to data assimilation to understand some of the basics of how these observations are used in numerical weather prediction (NWP) and the generation of weather and climate analyses.

This semester, there will be particular emphasis on the Active Temperature, Ozone and Moisture Microwave Spectrometer (ATOMMS) remote sensing system that we are building on campus and will begin to demonstrate via aircraft this semester.

Homework:

There will be reading assignments for many classes

Frequency of assignment of homework is TBD because of the lack of a TA and other commitments particularly as related to ATOMMSthis semester.

Grading:

The grade will be divided up between homework and a final project: The tentative 40% Homework and 60% Final Project. There will be no exams.

Required Textbook

Introduction to the Physics and Techniques of Remote Sensing, Charles Elachi and Jakob van Zyl, 2^nd Ed., 2006, Wiley-Interscience.

Supplemental References

Satellite Meteorology, An Introduction, Stanley Q. Kidder and Thomas H. Vonder Haar, 1995, Academic Press. (http://www1.cira.colostate.edu/satmet/default.htm).

Good book mostly on operational sounders of the early 1990’s but getting dated.

Remote Sensing of the Lower Atmosphere, An Introduction, Graeme Stephens, 1994, Oxford Press.

Good book in many ways but many errors and getting a bit dated.

Inverse methods for atmospheric sounding: Theory and Practice, Clive Rodgers, 2000, World Scientific.

Excellent text on retrieval and information theory

Introduction to the Mathematics of Inversion in Remote Sensing and Indirect Measurements, Sean Twomey, 1977, Dover

From UA Atmospheric Science. First understanding of what Clive Rodgers eventually wrote about. Dover publishing means inexpensive.

Atmospheric Modeling, Data Assimilation and Predictability, Eugenia Kalnay, 2003, Cambridge

Only Data Assimilation text around.

Material covered in lectures:

Introduction: overview of remote sensing, types and applications

Satellite Orbits (Appendix B)

Properties of Electromagnetic Radiation (Ch 2)

Principles of atmosphere sensing (Ch. 8)

Basic properties of the atmosphere

Spectroscopy: Atomic and Molecular absorption and emission

Optical depth

Radiative transfer equation

Atmospheric temperature profiling

Water vapor and other trace constituent profiling

Inverse theory and information content

Data assimilation in Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) systems

Clouds and aerosols

Winds

Precipitation

Earth Radiation Budget

Microwave remote sensing of the atmosphere (Ch 9)

Mm and sub-mm (Ch 10)

Radio Occultation GPS and ATOMMS

Vis and IR (Ch 11)

Ocean sensing (ch 7)

Cryosphere

Water mass movement via Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)