The Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) is a seven-channel, four frequency, linearly-polarized, passive microwave radiometric system that measures atmospheric, ocean and terrain microwave brightness temperatures at 19.35, 22.235, 37.0 and 85.5 GHz. The data are used to obtain synoptic maps of critical atmospheric, oceanographic, and selected land parameters on a global scale. The SSM/I archive data set consists of antenna temperatures recorded across a 1,400 km conical scan, satellite ephemeris, earth surface positions for each pixel and instrument calibration. Electromagnetic radiation is polarized by the ambient electric field, scattered by the atmosphere and Earth's surface and scattered and absorbed by atmospheric water vapor, oxygen, liquid water, and ice.
The SSM/I instrument consists of an offset parabolic reflector that is 24 x 26 inches fed by a seven- port horn antenna. The reflector and feed are mounted on a drum which contains the radiometers, digital data subsystem, mechanical scanning subsystem and power subsystem. The drum assembly rotates about the axis of the drum. A small mirror and a hot reference absorber are mounted on the assembly.
The instrument sweeps a 450 cone around the satellite velocity vector so that the Earth incidence angle is always 540. Data are recorded during the 102.40 of the cone when the antenna beam intercepts the Earth's surface. The channel footprint varies with channel energy, position in the scan, along scan or along track direction and altitude of the satellite. The 85 GHz footprint is the smallest with a 13 x 15 km and the 19 GHz footprint is the largest at 43 x 69 km. Because the 85 GHz footprint is so small, it is sampled twice as often, i.e., 128 times a scan. One data cycle consists of 4 85 GHz scans and 2 scans of the 19, 22 and 37 GHz channels. The complete cycle takes 28 seconds and it must be complete to process the data.
The SSM/I processor is queried once a second by an onboard computer and the data are placed into the "TS SSP" data field. Data is ingested in simple format as sent from AFWA on a T-1 line. At NCEI, the "TS SSP" data are de-commutated, deinterleaved, bit flipped, reordered and restructured into orbits beginning with the equatorial crossing as the satellite travels from south to north. Satellite ephemeris are computed using a physically-based, orbital mechanics model. SSM/I pixels are geolocated using the satellite ephemeris and satellite attitude corrections. Antenna temperatures are computed from instrumental counts by a linear equation, i.e., the conversion is reversible.
In the de-commutation step, we encountered bit reversals that occurred 1.8 - 3.4% of the time and are probably caused by ionospheric scintillation. These are identified through careful checking procedures and corrected. Archive files contain metadata by orbit and geolocated antenna temperatures.
SSM/I data are used to derive geophysical parameters; notably, ocean surface wind speed, area covered by ice, age of ice, ice edge, precipitation over land, cloud liquid water, integrated water vapor, precipitation over water, soil moisture, land surface temperature, snow cover and sea surface temperature. Most current methods use statistical algorithms which mean or difference channel brightness temperatures [Hollinger et al., 1989]. Brightness temperatures are computed from antenna temperatures using the published antenna pattern correction which includes dynamic adjustments for antenna side lobe, antenna efficiencies and neighboring pixel contributions.
