Microwave radiometer measurement of water vapor path delay: Data reduction techniques

Data reduction techniques are developed to compensate for water vapor path delay, a limiting error source in geodetic measurements made with very long baseline interferometry and in radio ranging to spacecraft. It is shown that water vapor path delay is proportional to a linear combination of saturation-corrected sky brightness temperatures, measured on and off the water vapor line. The effects of emission from liquid water droplets in clouds as well as most of the oxygen emission are removed by the off-line channel. Sky brightness temperatures are saturation-corrected or 'linearized' using estimates of effective sky temperatures made from surface temperature. Tipping curves are used to remove instrumental error. Coefficients are found by two methods: from a regression analysis of measured brightness temperatures versus radiosonde measured delay, and from a regression analysis of theoretical brightness temperatures versus radiosonde measured delay. In each case the coefficients are adjusted for differing climatic conditions by measurements of surface temperature, pressure, and relative humidity. Regression solutions are constrained to remove liquid water contributions and to give the correct slope for radiometer versus radiosonde path delay.