Aqua/AMSR-E L1R AMSR2 Format Brightness Temperature

Product Summary

Aqua/AMSR-E L1R AMSR2 Format Brightness Temperature dataset is obtained from the AMSR-E sensor onboard Aqua and produced by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
Aqua of NASA was launched on May 4th, 2002 in Sun-synchronous sub-recurrent Orbit. Aqua observes various kinds of physical phenomena related to water and energy circulation from space. Aqua data promoted the research activities for interactions between the atmosphere, oceans and lands, and their effects on climate changes.
AMSR-E scans the Earth's surface by mechanically rotating the antenna and acquires radiance data of the Earth's surface. Each frequency band is monitored by vertical and horizontal polarized wave. It conically scans and keeps an angle of incidence on the earth surface (a nominal of 55 degrees) and accomplishes a swath width of about 1450 km. The AMSR-E reached its limit to maintain the antenna rotation speed necessary for regular observations, and the AMSR-E restarted its observation in slow rotation mode (2 rotations per minute) on December 4, 2012. However, the AMSR-E reached its limit to maintain the antenna rotation speed necessary for slow rotation mode and it automatically halted its observation and rotation on December 4, 2015.
Level 1R AMSR2 Format Brightness Temperature data is converted from Level 1B data. Data are resampled with equal footprint size for each frequency. The physical quantity unit is Kelvin.
For AMSR/AMSR-E, they correspond to brightness temperatures. Data location and quality information are also included. Data are not map-projected, but stored in the swath format. L1B and L1R products also include information of data geolocation and quality.
The provided format is HDF5. The current version of the product is "Version 4". The generation unit is scene (defined as a half orbit).

Platform

Aqua

Sensor

AMSR-E

Coverage

Temporal Coverage

2002-06-01 to 2011-10-05

Spatial Coverage

Bounding Rectangle
(90.0°, -180.0°, -90.0°, 180.0°)

Resolution

Location

• GLOBAL > GLOBAL