Short Course on Satellite Meteorology
AMS 78th Annual Meeting
11 January 1998   Phoenix, Arizona

GOES Transmittances and Weighting Functions
 
Transmittance:  Percent of radiation of particular wavelength transmitted through the atmosphere.

                         Transmittance = 1- Emmisivity

Weighting Function:  Derivative of transmittance with respect to height (ln Pressure).  Larger values
                                  correspond to atmospheric layers with the greatest contribution to
                                  radiance values.

 Longwave Channels

 Mid-wave Channels

 Shortwave Channels


Example:  3 GOES Sounder Longwave Channels
 
GOES-8 Longwave Transmittances (Selected Channels)
 

 
GOES Sounder Longwave Channels - Weighting Functions
 
GOES Longwave Sounder Weighting Functions
Weighting Functions = dT/dlnP
where T = Transmittance, and P = Pressure
Labels for each curve include GOES sounder channel number, and central wavenumber (cm-1)

 
GOES Mid-wave Sounder Weighting Functions
 
GOES Mid-wave Sounder Weighting Functions
Weighting Functions = dT/dlnP
where T = Transmittance, and P = Pressure
Labels for each curve include GOES sounder channel number, and central wavenumber (cm-1)

GOES Shortwave Sounder Weighting Functions
 
GOES Shortwave Sounder Weighting Functions
 
Weighting Functions = dT/dlnP
where T = Transmittance, and P = Pressure
Labels for each curve include GOES sounder channel number, and central wavenumber (cm-1)

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