| Instrument: TOVS : TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder |
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Associated Platforms TIROS-N NOAA-6 Spectral/Frequency Information Wavelength Keyword: Infrared > Thermal Number Channels: 20 Related Data Sets View all records related to this instrument Description Data acquired from the TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) are used to produce atmospheric soundings. The TOVS software transforms upwelling infrared and microwave radiant energy into vertical temperature and water vapor profiles. A variety of other parameters, such as total ozone, cloud height and amount, and tropopause temperature and pressure, are also derived. Approximately 50,000 soundings, spaced 80 to 300 km apart, are produced daily by two polar orbiting satellites. Objective analysis and noise screening techniques that eliminate bad, redundant, and questionable data reduce this to about 10,000 soundings per day. TOVS, as flown aboard the Advanced TIROS-N (ATN) is a three instrument system consisting of the HIRS/2, SSU and MSU. The High-resolution Infrared Sounder (HIRS/2) is a 20 channel instrument for taking atmospheric measurements, primarily in the IR region. The data acquired can be used to compute atmospheric temperatures from the Earth surface to 50 mb, water vapor content in three atmospheric layers, and the total ozone content of the atmospheric column. HIRS/2 will be replaced by an improved version onboard NOAA-K,L, and M in the 1990s.
Online Resources http://www.ozonelayer.noaa.gov/action/tovs.htm Instrument Logistics Instrument Owner: USA/NASA USA/NOAA |
