Summary

Description

The Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) is a seven-channel linearly polarized passive microwave radiometer that operates at frequencies of 19.36 (vertically and horizontally polarized), 22.235 (vertically polarized), 37.0 (vertically and horizontally polarized), and 85.5 GHz (vertically and horizontally polarized). The instrument was carried aboard Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites F8, F10, F11, F12, F13, and F15. The Sensor Data Records (SDRs) from SSM/I contain calibrated and earth-located data after antenna pattern corrections have been applied. These SSM/I SDRs in network Common Data Format (netCDF) have embedded temperature and geolocation flags as well as a climatology flag that calculates deviations from a climatological norm for each radiance footprint or z-score. The original radiance and geolocation data are not changed. Variable orbital files from the originating SDR dataset have been aggregated into 3-hourly files for ease of use.