New 3-Channel Microwave Radiometer Retrieval Data Released

Published: 30 June 2025

This is a collection of four quicklook panels from the Microwave Radiometer Retrievals version 2 (MWRRETv2) value-added product from April 15, 2023, at the mobile facility site during the Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory (SAIL) campaign. — This quicklook image produced by the MWRRETv2 value-added product provides data from April 15, 2023, at the SAIL ARM Mobile Facility site. From top to bottom, the panels show observed brightness temperatures at 23.8 (blue), 30 (red), and 89 GHz (green); physically (red and blue) and statistically (green) retrieved precipitable water vapor; physically (red and blue) and statistically (green) retrieved liquid water path; and rain intensity.

The Microwave Radiometer Retrievals version 2 value-added product (MWRRETv2 VAP) is now available for the 2021–2023 Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory (SAIL) campaign near Crested Butte, Colorado.

Meanwhile, additional MWRRETv2 data have been produced for the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) User Facility’s Southern Great Plains (SGP) Central Facility near Lamont, Oklahoma, and ARM’s mobile facility deployment at Oliktok Point, Alaska. The new SGP data are from April 1, 2024, through March 31, 2025. The new Oliktok Point data are from October 1, 2019, through June 15, 2021, which was the final day of ARM Mobile Facility operations at the site.

MWRRETv2 applies the Turner et al. (2007) optimal estimation retrieval of liquid water path and precipitable water vapor to measurements from 3-channel microwave radiometers. These radiometers provide time-series measurements of brightness temperatures at 23.8, 30, and 89 GHz. The 89 GHz channel provides additional sensitivity to liquid water, especially at low liquid water paths.

MWRRETv2 applies bias corrections to the brightness temperature data on a daily basis, using an automated bias correction process calculated across a 90-day rolling window.

More information about MWRRETv2 can be found on the VAP web page.

Scientists can access the new MWRRETv2 data now in the ARM Data Center. (To download the data, first create an ARM account.)

Please send data questions or comments to ARM translator Damao Zhang.

To cite the MWRRETv2 data, please use doi:10.5439/1566156.

Reference: Turner DD, SA Clough, JC Liljegren, EE Clothiaux, KE Cady-Pereira, and KL Gaustad. 2007. “Retrieving Liquid Water Path and Precipitable Water Vapor From the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Microwave Radiometers.” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 45(11), https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2007.903703

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ARM is a DOE Office of Science user facility operated by nine DOE national laboratories.