| Overview
Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer(AMSR) will observe various physical content concerning water (H2O) by receiving weak microwaves to be naturally radiated from the Earth's surface and atmosphere (for example, water vapor content, precipitation, sea surface temperature, sea surface wind, sea ice, etc.) and also regardless of day or night, the presence of cloud. These sensors aim at collecting energy.
AMSR is a radiometer to observe eight frequency bands from 6.9GHz to 89GHz bands respectively by the vertical and horizontal polarized waves except two frequency bands of 50GHz. It acquires radiance data by scanning the Earth's surface conically or mechanically rotating its antenna along the satellite flight path. Also, AMSR has the function and high-temperature calibration source to acquire radiance temperatures in deep space (about 2.7K) for calibrating observation data.
The aperture diameter of AMSR's antenna is 2m and its instant visual field is about 5km (89GHz). It scans conically an angle of incidence on the Earth's surface (a nominal angle:55deg) to be constant and minimizes the effect of sea surface wind upon observation data and accomplishes a swath width of about 1600km.
|
