Performance Evaluation and Noise Mitigation of the FY-3E Microwave Humidity Sounder

Abstract

Fengyun-3E, which is equipped with MicroWave Humidity Sounder 2 (MWHS-2) for detecting both temperature and humidity, is China’s latest polar orbiting meteorological satellite and China’s first satellite in early-morning orbit. The observation bias and observation error characteristics of MWHS-2 are evaluated by using ERA-5 as the background field. The results show that the biases range from −4 to 2 K, and the observation errors are within 1.5 K except for the window channels. A further analysis of the dependence on the scanning angles indicates that observation errors for the window channels and the 118-GHz channels increase with decreasing scanning angles. Observation errors of the window channels and water vapor channels are also latitudinally dependent, and the maximum errors in the high latitudes reach 2.0 K, while those in the tropical regions are approximately 0.8 K. In addition, the observed brightness temperature of FY-3E MWHS-2 is accompanied by striping noises along the track and high-frequency oscillation noises along the scanlines. The noise mitigation results show that both noises are approximately 0.2 K.