Abstract
A result of statistical approach to estimate both sea surface temperature (SST) and precipitable water from MOS-1/VTIR data collected over the sea around Japan is dercribed and discussed with emphasis on the usefulness of the data of the water vapor absorption channel.
The various equations relating SST or precipitable water to the brightness temperature of VTIR channels along with the viewing angle, are examined in reference to the observed SST and precipitable water. The statistical analysis indecates that SST estimated from the brightness temperature at the two atmospheric window channels (ch. 3 & 4) shows a better result than that obtained from single channel data. It is found that the contribution of brightness temperature of the water vapor channel (ch. 2) to improvement of accuracy of SST is not large under cloudless condition. It is expected however that hardly recognizable thin cirrus is present the contribution of ch. 2 data will be significant.
In the case of precipitable water estimation, however, contribution of ch. 2 brightness tempdrature to the improvement is significantly large showing an important role of ch. 2 brightness temperature is effective in estimation of the precipitable water.
