Relative Information Content of the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder and the Combination of the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit and the Microwave Humidity Sounder

This paper presents the results of a simple information content study between the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit/Microwave Humidity Sounder (AMSU/MHS) and the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS). When a single field of view is considered for both instruments, the AMSU/MHS generally outperforms the ATMS for temperature and moisture information due to its better noise performance. However, when footprint matching is employed to use oversampled ATMS observations, the ATMS consistently shows improvement in temperature and moisture information over the AMSU/MHS.