Deconvolution of wide field-of-view radiometer measurements of earth-emitted radiation. II - Analysis of first year of Nimbus 6 ERB data

The theory of deconvolution considered by Smith and Green (1981) is applied to Nimbus 6 data in order to interpret the data with the maximum obtainable resolution. Attention is given to the data sample, sun-contaminated measurements, the measurement model, the deconvolution, the degree variance, the spherical harmonic coefficients, the geographical distribution of longwave radiation, time histories of zonal coefficients, and the effect of a grid system. Degree variance plots for 12 months of longwave radiation data show that the limit for a spherical harmonic representation of the Nimbus 6 wide field-of-view longwave data is 12th degree. The degree variance plots also reveal that most of the power is in the lower degree terms. Contour maps of the radiation field show the geographical distribution of earth emitted radiant exitance for each month.