Use of Surface Sensitive Radiances a survey conducted for: 1st Workshop on Remote Sensing and Modeling of Surface Properties Co-chairs: Catherine Prigent, Météo France Fuzhong Weng, NOAA/STAR

The Radiative Transfer and Surface Property Modeling Group at the 14th International TOVS meeting called for a focus on surface emissivity. The group set actions to enlighten the community on the methods and state of the problem in this area. One of the immediate tasks was to take a survey of operational weather centers and ascertain what surface sensitive channels are now being assimilated. The following table was created from this survey, with the blue "x" () where only atmospheric sounding channels are assimilated, and the green "checkmark" () denoting where surface senstive channels are assimilated. The most prevelent surface sensitive channels are from AMSU/A over ocean; often however centers will only assimilate channel four (52.8 GHz on the wing of oxygen absorbtion) and higher. Active research over land with IR and microwave window channels is underway and this group would like to facilitate the dissemination of workable knowledge which will allow the use surface sensitive radiances.