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Clear sky global training database for hyperspectral and multi-spectral atmospheric retrievals



This training database of global profiles (called SeeBor V4.0) consists of more than 15704 global profiles of temperature, moisture, and ozone at 101 pressure levels for clear sky conditions. The profiles are taken from NOAA-88, an ECMWF 60L training set , TIGR-3, ozonesondes from 8 NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (CMDL) sites , and radiosondes from 2004 in the Sahara desert. Quality checks were applied to all the profiles along with the following saturation criteria: for clear sky conditions, the relative humidity (RH) value of the profiles must be less than 95/99 % at each level below the 250 hPa pressure level. In addition to adding the new radiosondes and ozone profiles, it is required that the original top of sounding pressure be no greater than 30 hPa for temperature and moisture profiles and 10 hPa for ozone. A technique to extend the temperature, moisture, and ozone profiles above the level of existing data that insures physically consistent behavior near the top of the troposphere was implemented. Where ozone data were not included with the original profiles, a regression-based algorithm for deriving ozone profiles was used (personal communication with Paul van Delst). For each profile in the data set a physically based characterization of the surface skin temperature and surface emissivity are assigned.

Reference: Borbas, E. E., Suzanne Wetzel Seemann, Hung-Lung Huang, Jun Li, and W. Paul Menzel, 2005: Global profile training database for satellite regression retrievals with estimates of skin temperature and emissivity. Proceedings of the XIV. International ATOVS Study Conference, Beijing, China, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Space Science and Engineering Center, Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), Madison, WI, 2005, pp.763- 770.

The latest version of training data:

SeeBorV5.0 (21 MB) File specifics

Documentation:

ITSC14 paper (1.3 MB)

ITSC14 poster (0.5 MB)

Contact persons:

Eva E. Borbas



Eva Borbas (last update July 9 2010)