Advanced Topics

(i) Passive Microwave Remote

Sensing

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Objectives
2

Introduction
Passive Remote Sensing

(Principles & Applications )

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

EM Spectrum
1

Microwave region
300 MHz 30 GHz.

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Microwave Remote Sensing

1

Advantages

Day/night coverage.
All weather except during
periods of heavy rain.
Complementary
information to that in
optical and IR regions.

Remote Sensing: M9L1

Disadvantages

Data are difficult to

interpret.
Coarse resolution except
for SAR.

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Microwave Frequency Designations

Band

Wavelength, cm

Frequency, GHz

Ka

0.75-1.18

40.0-26.5

1.19-1.67

26.5-18.0

Ku

1.67-2.4

18.0-12.5

2.4-3.8

12.5-8.0

3.9-7.5

8.0-4.0

7.5-15.0

4.0-2.0

15.0-30.0

2.0-1.0

30.0-100

1.0-0.3

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Passive Microwave Remote Sensing

from Space
6

Passive remote sensing systems record electromagnetic energy that is

reflected or emitted from the Earths surface and atmosphere

Advantages

Disadvantages

Penetration through nonprecipitating clouds

Larger field of views (10-50 km)

compared to VIS/IR sensors

Radiance is linearly related to

temperature (i.e. the retrieval is
nearly linear)

Variable emissivity over land

Highly stable instrument

calibration

Polar orbiting satellites provide

discontinuous temporal coverage at
low latitudes (need to create weekly
composites)

Global coverage and wide swath

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Passive Microwave Radiometry

7

Passive microwave sensors measure the naturally emitted / scattered

electromagnetic energy from the surface of earth.

This is called the brightness temperature and is linearly related to the

kinetic temperature of the surface

These sensors use an antenna (horn) to detect photons at

microwave frequencies which are then converted to voltages in a

circuit

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Microwave Brightness Temperature

8

The

Rayleigh-Jeans approximation provides a simple linear

relationship between measured spectral radiance temperature and
emissivity

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Rayleigh-Jeans Approximation
9

a constant

2kcT
L 4

spectral radiance is a
linear function of kinetic
temperature

k is Plancks constant, c is the speed of light, e is

emissivity, T is kinetic temperature

This approximation only holds for l >> lmax
(e.g. l > 2.57mm @300 K)

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Brightness Temperature
10
This image cannot currently be display ed.

is also called the brightness temperature typically shown as TB

4
TB
L
2 kc
Brightness temperature can be related to kinetic temperature through
emissivity

Tb Tkin

Thus, passive microwave brightness temperatures can be used to

monitor temperature as well as properties related to emissivity

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Example of Microwave
Radiometers
11

Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) 1978-present

Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) 1981-

1987
Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) 1987-present
Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 1997-present
Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) 2002-

present

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Passive Microwave
Applications
12
Soil moisture
Snow water equivalent
Sea surface temperature
Atmospheric water vapor
Surface wind speed
Cloud liquid water
Rainfall rate

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Monitoring Temperatures with

Passive Microwave
13

Sea surface temperature

Land surface temperature

Source: http://forum.sci.ccny.cuny.edu/Members/mtedesco/lectureNov14b
Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Passive Microwave Sensing of Land

Surface Emissivity Differences
14

Microwave emissivity is a function of the dielectric constant

Usually dielectric constant of earth materials are in the range of

1 to 4 (air=1, veg=3, ice=3.2)

Dielectric constant of liquid water is 80

Hence, Brightness temperature is affected by moisture

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Atmospheric Effects
15

At frequencies less than 50 GHz, theres little effect of

clouds and fog on brightness temperature (it sees

through clouds)

Thus, PM can be used to monitor the land surface

under cloudy conditions

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Atmospheric Mapping
16

Mapping
global water
vapor using 85
GHz Tb

Source: http://forum.sci.ccny.cuny.edu/Members/mtedesco/lectureNov14b
Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Passive Microwave Sensing

of Rain
17

Over the ocean:

Ocean surfaces act as radiometrically cold background for the

warm raindrops. This contrast is used to detect rainfall.
Microwave emissivity of rain (liquid water) is about 0.9
whereas that of the ocean is much lower (0.5)

Over the land surface:

Difficult to demarcate the background emission from highly

varying land surfaces with that from rain drops (As both are
radiometrically warm)
Microwave scattering by frozen hydrometeors is used as a
measure of rain rate
Physical/empirical models are available to relate the scattering
signature to surface rain rates

Remote Sensing: M9L1

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Accumulated precipitation from the

Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)

Source: http://forum.sci.ccny.cuny.edu/Members/mtedesco/lectureNov14b
Remote Sensing: M9L1

18

D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc

Thank You

Remote Sensing: M9L1

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D.Nagesh Kumar, IISc