Mesospheric temperature sounding with microwave radiometers

The problem of allowing for the influence of the Earth's magnetic field on brightness temperatures in retrieving mesospheric information by use of microwave radiometric measurements is considered. A physically based method for incorporating magnetic field effects within an otherwise linear regression procedure is developed. The resulting algorithm is fast enough to be used operationally for a satellite-borne scanning radiometer system. Error statistics obtained for a small database indicate that considerable improvement over climatological estimates of the state of the mesosphere will be possible up to at least the 0.03-mb level (roughly 73-km altitude).<
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