• Journal of Satellite, Information and Communications
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.87-96
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• 2012

In this research, we describe recent technologies and system requirements of the passive microwave radiometer used in Earth observation satellites. And we classify types of microwave radiometer system for Earth observation satellites according to observation targets and ways to scan and discuss a design method. Also, requirements of passive radiometer for Earth observation missions in the latest practical examples used and developed are analyzed in this research.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.31.4-32
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• 2008

The microwave instruments are used many areas of the space remote sensing and space science applications. The imaging radar of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is well known microwave radar sensor for earth surface and ocean research. Unlike radar, microwave radiometer is passive instrument and it measures the emission energy of target, i.e. brightness temperature BT, from earth surface and atmosphere. From measured BT, the geophysical data like cloud liquid water, water vapor, sea surface temperature, surface permittivity can be retrieved. In this paper, the radiometer characteristics, system configuration and principle of BT measurement are described. Also the radiometer instruments TRMM, GPM, SMOS for earth climate, and ocean salinity research are introduce. As first korean microwave payload on STSAT-2, the DREAM (Dual-channels Radiometer for Earth and Atmosphere Monitoring) is described the mission, system configuration and operation plan for life time of two years. The main issues of DREAM unlike other spaceborne radiometers, will be addressed. The calibration is the one of main issues of DREAM mission and how it contribute on the space borne radiometer. In conclusion, the radiometer instrument to space science application will be considered.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.23 no.9
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• pp.1107-1115
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• 2012

This paper presents the development processes of a microwave radiometer for remote sensing of water surface temperature. Achieving the measurement accuracy within $2^{\circ}C$ for water surface temperature of $5{\sim}30^{\circ}C$, the requirements and specifications of the microwave radiometer and its receiver are drawn. The receiver with high gain, high sensitivity is designed and implemented. The receiver has the bandwidth of 50 MHz, the system gain of 45.2 dB and the sensitivity of 0.56K at 5.02 GHz. The effectiveness of the developed microwave radiometer in the measurement of water surface temperature is demonstrated experimentally. The results show the microwave radiometer can detect water surface temperature for $7.5{\sim}18^{\circ}C$ within the accuracy of $0.45^{\circ}C$.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.900-907
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• 2013

The development processes of a L-band microwave radiometer for remote sensing of water surface salinity are described in this paper. Achieving the development aim of the measurement accuracy within 2 psu for water surface salinity of 0~40 psu, the requirements and specifications of the microwave radiometer and its receiver are drawn. The receiver with high gain, high sensitivity is designed and implemented to satisfy these requirements and specifications. The receiver has the bandwidth of 45 MHz, the system gain of 47 dB and the sensitivity of 0.41 K at 1,390 MHz. The effectiveness of the developed L-band microwave radiometer for remote sensing of water surface salinity is demonstrated experimentally. The results show the microwave radiometer can detect water surface salinity for 10~28 psu within the accuracy of 1.4 psu.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.47-55
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• 2004

We have constructed a level-1 processor to generate brightness temperatures using the direct-broadcast data from the passive microwave radiometer onboard Aqua satellite. Although 50-minute half-orbit data, called a granule, are being routinely produced by global data centers, to our knowledge, this is the first attempt to process 10-minute long direct-broadcast (DB) data. We found that the processor designed for a granule needs modification to apply to the DB data. The modification includes the correction to path number, the selection of land mask and the manipulation of dummy scans. Pixel-to-pixel comparison with a reference indicates the difference in brightness temperature of about 0.2 K rms and less than 0.05 K mean. The difference comes from the different length of data between 50-minute granule and about 10-minute DB data. In detail, due to the short data length, DB data do not always have correct cold sky mirror count. The DB processing system is automated to enable the near-real time generation of brightness temperatures within 5 minutes after downlink. Through this work, we would be able to enhance the use of AMSR-E data, thus serving the objective of direct-broadcast.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• v.1
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• pp.142-145
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• 2006

The synergism of active and passive microwave techniques for hurricane ocean wind remote sensing is explored. We performed the analysis of Windsat data for Atlantic hurricanes in 2003-2005. The polarimetric third Stokes parameter observations from the Windsat 10, 18 and 37 GHz channels were collocated with the ocean surface winds from the Holland wind model, the NOAA HWind wind vectors and the Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) operated by the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). The collocated data were binned as a function of wind speed and wind direction, and were expanded by sinusoidal series of the relative azimuth angles between wind and observation directions. The coefficients of the sinusoidal series, corrected for atmospheric attenuation, have been used to develop an empirical geophysical model function (GMF). The Windsat GMF for extreme high wind compares very well with the aircraft radiometer and radar measurements.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.132-147
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• 2016

In this study the Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS) sensor onboard the Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) sensor onboard the Global Change Observation Mission-Water (GCOM-W1) based soil moisture retrievals were revised to obtain better accuracy of soil moisture and higher data acquisition rate over East Asia. These satellite-based soil moisture products are revised against a reference land model data set, called Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), using Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) matching and regression approach. Since MIRAS sensor is perturbed by radio frequency interferences (RFI), the worst part of soil moisture retrieval, East Asia, constantly have been undergoing loss of data acquisition rate. To overcome this limitation, the threshold of RFI, DQX, and composite days were suggested to increase data acquisition rate while maintaining appropriate data quality through comparison of land surface model data set. The revised MIRAS and AMSR2 products were compared with in-situ soil moisture and land model data set. The results showed that the revising process increased correlation coefficient values of SMOS and AMSR2 averagely 27% 11% and decreased the root mean square deviation (RMSD) decreased 61% and 57% as compared to in-situ data set. In addition, when the revised products' correlation coefficient values are calculated with model data set, about 80% and 90% of pixels' correlation coefficients of SMOS and AMSR2 increased and all pixels' RMSD decreased. Through our CDF-based revising processes, we propose the way of mutual supplementation of MIRAS and AMSR2 soil moisture retrievals.

• Atmosphere
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.395-409
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• 2022

A new soil moisture initialization scheme is applied to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) Global Seasonal forecasting system version 6 (GloSea6). It is designed to ingest the microwave soil moisture retrievals from Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) radiometer using the Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (LETKF). In this technical note, we describe the procedure of the newly-adopted initialization scheme, the change of soil moisture states by assimilation, and the forecast skill differences for the surface temperature and precipitation by GloSea6 simulation from two preliminary experiments. Based on a 4-year analysis experiment, the soil moisture from the land-surface model of current operational GloSea6 is found to be drier generally comparing to SMAP observation. LETKF data assimilation shows a tendency toward being wet globally, especially in arid area such as deserts and Tibetan Plateau. Also, it increases soil moisture analysis increments in most soil levels of wetness in land than current operation. The other experiment of GloSea6 forecast with application of the new initialization system for the heat wave case in 2020 summer shows that the memory of soil moisture anomalies obtained by the new initialization system is persistent throughout the entire forecast period of three months. However, averaged forecast improvements are not substantial and mixed over Eurasia during the period of forecast: forecast skill for the precipitation improved slightly but for the surface air temperature rather degraded. Our preliminary results suggest that additional elaborate developments in the soil moisture initialization are still required to improve overall forecast skills.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.257-268
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• 2023

Sea ice plays an important role in Earth's climate by regulating the amount of solar energy absorbed and controlling the exchange of heat and material across the air-sea interface. Its growth, drift, and melting are monitored on a regular basis by satellite observations. However, low-resolution products with passive microwave radiometer have reduced accuracy during summer to autumn when the ice surface changes rapidly. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) observations are emerging as a powerful complementary, but previous researches have mainly focused on winter ice. In this study, sea ice drift tracking was evaluated and analyzed using SAR images and tracker with global positioning system (GPS) during late summer-early autumn period when ice surface condition changes a lot. The results showed that observational uncertainty increases compared to winter period, however, the correlation coefficient with GPS measurements was excellent at 0.98, and the performance of the ice tracking algorithm was proportional to the sea ice concentration with a correlation coefficient of 0.59 for ice concentrations above 50%.