Method for estimating errors for radiation budget based on a scanning radiometer

The conduction of the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) will involve the utilization of three sets of instruments. Each set consists of a nonscanning package and a scanning radiometer. The instruments will fly on the NOAA F and G operational satellites and on a dedicated spacecraft, the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS). The ERBS will be in a 57 deg inclination orbit and will precess around the earth to provide sampling of the diurnal cycle of regions between + or - 57 deg latitude. The primary function of the scanning radiometer is to provide measurements for the calculation of the earth-emitted and absorbed solar radiation at the top of the earth-atmosphere system, averaged over 250 x 250 km regions. The present paper is concerned with errors found in these regional averages. Attention is given to details regarding the problem, scene identification probabilities, scene identification error effects, total pixel error, and errors due to regional averaging.