CEOS Instrument: Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS
| Instrument: | AMSR-E |
| Agencies: | JAXA [Primary] |
| NASA | |
| Mission: | Aqua |
| Status: | No longer operational |
| Type: | Multi-purpose imaging MW radiometer |
| Description: | Measurements of water vapour, cloud liquid water, precipitation, winds, sea surface temperature, sea ice concentration, snow cover and soil moisture. Instrument stopped functioning 4th October 2011. |
| Spatial Resolution: | 5 - 50 km (dependent on frequency) |
| Swath Width: | 1445 km |
| Wavebands: | Microwave: 6.925 GHz, 10.65 GHz, 18.7 GHz, 23. 8 GHz, 36.5 GHz, 89.0 GHz |
| Technology: | Multi-purpose imaging MW radiometer |
| Description: | Radiometer operating in bands of frequency ranging from 1 to 300 GHz. A specific instrument can only cover a limited part of the range, for instance from 7 to 200 GHz. Several parameters can be observed in this range, thus the instrument is designed by optimally blending the various features. For certain parameters very low frequencies are need (e.g., 1.4 GHz for ocean salinity and soil moisture in the roots region). Several channels, of bandwidths often constrained by frequency protection regulations. The basic channels operate in atmospheric windows, but in few cases absorption channels also are added. Conical scanning is the rule, that enables constant incidence angle, thus homogeneous polarisation conditions. If full polarisation is implemented, the instrument provides sea-surface wind vector. The resolution is diffraction-limited, thus for a given antenna (e.g., diameter 180 cm) changes with frequency (e.g., from 4 to 50 km moving frequency from 90 to 7 GHz). For very low frequencies, synthetic |
Measurement List:
(select measurement name to view details)
CEOS Systems Engineering Office (SEO)
CEOS Data Base Version: 17 - Created: 2012-01-18