Optics System Design of Microwave Imaging Reflectometry for the EAST Tokamak

A front-end optics system has been developed for the EAST microwave imaging reflectometry for 2D density fluctuation measurement.Via the transmitter optics system,a combination of eight transmitter beams with independent frequencies is employed to illuminate wide poloidal regions on eight distinct cutoff layers.The receiver optics collect the reflected wavefront and project them onto the vertical detector array with 12 antennas.Utilizing optimized Field Curvature adjustment lenses in the receiver optics,the front-end optics system provides a flexible and perfect matching between the image plane and a specified cutoff layer in the plasma,which ensures the correct data interpretation of density fluctuation measurement.

MICROWAVE RADIOMETER AND ITS APPLICATION TO SNOW MEASUREMENT

The microwave radiactivproperty of snow is studied using self-developed three band microwave radiometers. Experiments were carried out repeatedly from 1986 to 1989 in Northeast China The relation between brightness temperature and observation angle was obtained with both vertical and horizontal polarizations. The curves corresponding brightness temperature and snow depth were also drawn out for different frequency bands. The results demonstrate the application potential of the multifrequency microwave radiometer in this area.

Resolving SSM/I-Ship Radar Rainfall Discrepancies from AIP-3

The third algorithm intercomparison project （AIP-3） involved rain estimates from more than 50 satellite rainfall algorithms and ground radar measurements within the Intensive Flux Array （IFA） over the equatorial western Pacific warm pool region during the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment （TOGA COARE）. Early results indicated that there was a sys- tematic bias between rainrates from satellite passive microwave and ground radar measurements. The mean rainrate from radar measurements is about 50% underestimated compared to that from passive microwave-based retrieval algorithms. This paper is designed to analyze rain patterns from the Florida State University rain retrieval algorithm and radar measurements to understand physically the rain discrep- ancies. Results show that there is a clear range-dependent bias associated with the radar measurements. However, this range-dependent systematical bias is almost eliminated with the corrected radar rainrates. Results suggest that the effects from radar attenuation correction, calibration and beam filling are the major sources of rain discrepancies. This study demonstrates that rain retrievals based on satellite mea- surements from passive microwave radiometers such as the Special Sensor of Microwave Imager （SSM/I） are reliable, while rain estimates from ground radar measurements are correctable.

Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Electron Beam Air Plasma Properties at Moderate Pressure

Large size of air plasma at near atmospheric pressure has specific effects in aerospace applications. In this paper, a two dimensional multi-fluid model coupled with Monte Carlo （MC） model is established, and some experiments were carried out to investigate the characteristics of electron beam air plasma at pressure of 100-170 Torr. Based on the model, the properties of electron beam air plasma are acquired. The electron density is of the order of 1016 m-3 and the longitudinal size can exceed 1.2 m. The profiles of charged particles demonstrate that the oxygen molecule is very important for air plasma and its elementary processes play a key role in plasma equilibrium processes. The potential is almost negative and a very low potential belt is observed at the edge of plasma acting as a protection shell. A series of experiments were carried out in a low pressure vacuum facility and the beam plasma densities were diagnosed. The experimental results demonstrate that electron density increased with the electron beam energy, and the relatively low pressure was favorable for gaining high density plasma. Hence in order to achieve high density and large size plasma, it requires the researchers to choose proper discharge parameters.

A Thorough Evaluation of the Passive Microwave Radiometer Measurements onboard Three Fengyun-3 Satellites

Microwave Radiometer Imager(MWRI) is a key payload of China’s second generation polar meteorological satellite, i.e., Fengyun-3 series(FY-3). Up to now, 5 satellites including FY-3A(2008), FY-3B(2010), FY-3C(2013), FY-3D(2018), and FY-3E(2021) have been launched successfully to provide multiwavelength, all-weather, and global data for decades. Much progress has been made on the calibration of MWRI and a recalibrated MWRI brightness temperature(BT) product(V2) was recently released. This study thoroughly evaluates the accuracy of this new product from FY-3B, 3C, and 3D by using the simultaneous collocated Global Precipitation Measurement(GPM)Microwave Imager(GMI) measurements as a reference. The results show that the mean biases(MBEs) of the BT between MWRI and GMI are generally less than 0.5 K and the root mean squares(RMSs) between them are less than1.5 K. The previous notable ascending and descending difference of the MWRI has disappeared. This indicates that the new MWRI recalibration procedure is very effective in removing potential errors associated with the emission of the hot-load reflector. Analysis of the dependence of MBE on the latitude and earth scene temperature shows that MBE decreases with decreasing latitude over ocean. Furthermore, MBE over ocean decreases linearly with increasing scene temperature for almost all channels, whereas this does not occur over land. A linear regression fitting is then used to modify MWRI, which can reduce the MBE over ocean to be within 0.2 K. The standard deviation of error of GMI, FY-3B, and FY-3D MWRI BT data derived by using the three-cornered hat method(TCH) shows that GMI has the best overall performance over ocean except at 10.65 GHz where its standard deviation of error is slightly larger than that of FY-3D. Over land, the standard deviation of error of FY-3D is the lowest at almost all channels except at 89V. MWRI onboard FY-3 series satellites would serve as an important passive microwave radiometer member of the constellation to monitor key surface and atmospheric properties.

Comparison of TMI and AMSR-E sea surface temperatures with Argo near-surface temperatures over the global oceans

Satellite-derived sea surface temperatures（SSTs） from the tropical rainfall measuring mission（TRMM）microwave imager（TMI） and the advanced microwave scanning radiometer for the earth observing system（AMSR-E） were compared with non-pumped near-surface temperatures（NSTs） obtained from Argo profiling floats over the global oceans. Factors that might cause temperature differences were examined, including wind speed, columnar water vapor, liquid cloud water, and geographic location. The results show that both TMI and AMSR-E SSTs are highly correlated with the Argo NSTs; however, at low wind speeds, they are on average warmer than the Argo NSTs. The TMI performs slightly better than the AMSR-E at low wind speeds, whereas the TMI SST retrievals might be poorly calibrated at high wind speeds. The temperature differences indicate a warm bias of the TMI/AMSR-E when columnar water vapor is low, which can indicate that neither TMI nor AMSR-E SSTs are well calibrated at high latitudes. The SST in the Kuroshio Extension region has higher variability than in the Kuroshio region. The variability of the temperature difference between the satellite-retrieved SSTs and the Argo NSTs is lower in the Kuroshio Extension during spring. At low wind speeds, neither TMI nor AMSR-E SSTs are well calibrated, although the TMI performs better than the AMSR-E.

Evaluating a satellite-based sea surface temperature by shipboard survey in the Northwest Indian Ocean

A summer-time shipboard meteorological survey is described in the Northwest Indian Ocean. Shipboard observations are used to evaluate a satellite-based sea surface temperature（SST）, and then find the main factors that are highly correlated with errors. Two satellite data, the first is remote sensing product of a microwave, which is a Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Microwave Imager（TMI）, and the second is merged data from the microwave and infrared satellite as well as drifter observations, which is Operational Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Ice Analysis（OSTIA）. The results reveal that the daily mean SST of merged data has much lower bias and root mean square error as compared with that from microwave products. Therefore the results support the necessary of the merging infrared and drifter SST with a microwave satellite for improving the quality of the SST. Furthermore, the correlation coefficient between an SST error and meteorological parameters, which include a wind speed, an air temperature, a relative humidity, an air pressure, and a visibility. The results show that the wind speed has the largest correlation coefficient with the TMI SST error. However, the air temperature is the most important factor to the OSTIA SST error. Meanwhile,the relative humidity shows the high correlation with the SST error for the OSTIA product.

Photonic-assisted approach for instantaneous microwave frequency measurement with tunable range by using Mach-Zehnder interferometers

A novel photonic-assisted approach to microwave frequency measurement is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The proposed scheme is based on the frequency-to-power mapping with different transmis- sion responses. A polarizer is used in one output branch of a phase modulator to simultaneously implement phase modulation and intensity modulation. Owing to the complementary nature of the transmission re- sponses and the Mach-Zehnder interferometers （MZIs）, this scheme theoretically provides high resolution and tunable measurement range. The measurement errors in the experimental results can be kept within 0.2 GHz over a freauencv ranee from 0.1 to 5.3 GHz.

ESTIMATION OF CLOUD LIQUID WATER OVER THE HUBEX AREA USING THE TRMM MICROWAVE IMAGER

The ability of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Microwave Imager(TRMM/TMI)for cloud liquid water(CLW)retrieval has been demonstrated in this study.Due to the great sensitivity of the TMI 85.5 GHz channels to CLW,the liquid water path(LWP)of nonprecipitating clouds over land can be successfully estimated using the VDISORT model based on the iteration steps.Both the vertical-polarized 85. 5 GHz single-channel method and the polarization-difference of 85.5 GHz method were applied to the LWP estimates over land regions during the Huaihe River Basin Energy and Water Cycle Experiment(HUBEX)in China.The retrieval results show reasonable agreement with the ground-based microwave radiometer measurements.When the surface emissivity or skin temperature is difficult to be made sure,the polarization-difference method shows advantages of providing estimates of LWP especially for low clouds because of its extremely insensitiveness to the surface skin temperature.

SATELLITE MICROWAVE REMOTE SENSING OF FLOODING

The ability of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) for flooding and soil wetness detection has been demonstrated in this study.On the basis of TMI measurements,four methods,the classification method,the soil wetness index (SWI) method. the polarization difference index (PDI) method,and the polarization ratio index (PRI) method, were brought out to monitor flooding and study soil wetness in the Changjiang and Huaihe River Basins during the summer 1998.Compared with the images provided by L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (L-SAR) and Radar Satellite (Radarsat) and the figures derived from daily rainfall data based on the Z-index method,the detection of flooding and soil wetness by TMI was proved to be feasible.