Xavier Calbet (AEMET):
Xavier Calbet talks about IRS and it's uses, specifically from NWC SAF side.
The MTG-S/IRS will be an infrared hyperspectral sounder in geostationary orbit, providing high spectral resolution radiances with a refresh rate of 30 minutes over the LAC-4 region (approximately the northern quarter of the IRS disk) and three consecutive slots every several hours over the rest of the LAC regions. The spatial resolution will be of 4 km at nadir. The MTG-S/IRS instrument will have close to 2000 channels in the thermal infrared which will allow the retrieval of temperature and water vapour profiles of the atmosphere at an unprecedented vertical resolution from geostationary orbit. The accuracy of the temperature and water vapour retrievals obtained from infrared sounders varies depending on the altitude, scene cloudiness and actual temperature and water vapour profile. The best accuracy and vertical resolution is typically obtained in the mid-troposphere, while the worst one is in the lower layers of the troposphere. Furthermore, retrievals show a good accuracy even over cloudy scenes reaching up to 80% cloud fraction. On average, the typical accuracy of infrared hyperspectral retrievals is approximately of 1 K in 1 km layers for temperature and 15% in 2 km layers for humidity.
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