The Study of In-Orbit Calibration Accuracy of NOAA Satellite Infrared Sounder and Its Effect on Temperature Profile Retrievals

The calibration accuracy of High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder Mod. 2 (H1RS / 2) on NOAA-10 sat-ellite is analyzed in this paper. The non-linear effect in the linear calibration curve induces a deviation of 1.5 degrees (k) of brightness temperature in the tenth channel (8.3 urn, water vapor absorption) of the HIRS / 2 and the non-linear effect affects the other channels to a different extent. Based on analyzing non-linearity in two-point calibration curve, a tri-point calibration equation is given. A numerical test of effects of the linear and non-linear calibration models on the accuracy of atmospheric temperature retrievals is carried out.