ATOVS
Introduction
TOVS has been flown on NOAA 10-14 and is made up of three instruments: the High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS), the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU), and the Stratospheric Sounding Unit (SSU).
ATOVS is flown on NOAA 15 onwards and is composed of three instruments as well: The next generation of HIRS (HIRS/3), the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A) (based on former MSU), and the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-B).
TOVS / ATOVS Products at DLR-DFD:
Temperature and Humidity Profiles and Total Water Vapor Content (TWC) for the European area. For more information please click here.
Activities at DLR-DFD
DLR-DFD processes TOVS data from the NOAA 14 satellite and ATOVS data from the NOAA 16 satellite for the European area. DFD's interest is the use of this data for atmospheric correction, but we provide the data to users for other purposes as well.
Daily maps of total column water vapor content (level 3 product) are available as well as an interpolated product from the total column water vapor content.
Example Data Products
Example for NOAA 15 ATOVS vertical profiles of
temperature and dewpoint temperature
Example for the ATOVS derived total water vapor content (TWC)
NOAA 16, 30. Jan 2001, 01:09 UTC over Europe
If you would like to have more information about the ATOVS data products, please contact wdc@dlr.de.