Microwave Scanner-Sounder MTVZA-GY on New Russian Meteorological Satellite Meteor-M No. 2: Modeling, Calibration, and Measurements

On July 8, 2014 meteorological satellite “Meteor-M” no. 2 with a module of temperature and humidity atmospheric sensing MTVZA-GY was launched on a circular sun-synchronous orbit. Microwave radiometer MTVZA-GY has 16 imaging channels at frequencies of 10.65, 18.7, 23.8, 31.5, 36.5, 42.0, 48.0, and 91.65 GHz and 13 sounder channels at frequencies in the ranges of 52–57 and 176–191 GHz and carries out conical scanning of the Earth at the angle of incidence 65°. Swath width is 1500 km. The brightness temperatures TBs were computed by numerical integration of microwave radiative transfer equation using the radiosonde and reanalysis atmospheric profiles as the input information. The TBs for the Amazon forest and the calm Ocean under clear sky served for the vicarious calibration of MTVZA channels. The long-term stability of MTVZA-GY operation was examined by the analysis of time series of TBs measured over the test areas around the Eastern Antarctic Dome C station, Greenland GEOSummit station and Amazon rainforest. TBs time series obtained by the GCOM-W1 AMSR2 radiometer for the same test areas served as a reference and were used for a comparison with MTVZA-GY time series. Examples are given of the global MTVZA-GY measurements.