Scientific studies in association with the Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SSBUV) project

During the past reporting period efforts focused on performing detailed comparisons between measurements made by the SBUV/2 V instruments carried on NOAA-9 and NOAA-11 and the first three flights of the Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SSBUV) project. The quantities to be compared are the measurables, being the ratio of emergent radiance (I) in the vertical direction to the incoming solar irradiance (F). The backscatter albedo, A(w,j), was defined by: A(w,j) = I(w,j)/F(w,j) where w = 1,2,..., 12 refers to wavelength, and j indicates the instrument and flight on which the data were obtained. The comparisons to be made are NOAA-9 to SSBUV-1, NOAA-11 to SSBUV-2, and NOAA-11 to SSBUV-3. For the comparisons the N-values contained in the data files supplied by GSFC were converted to albedos via: A(w,j) = 10(exp N(w,j)/100). The comparisons described were designed to characterize the differences between the NOAA and SSBUV data sets.