Field-of-view characteristics and resolution matching for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Microwave Imager (GMI)

Abstract. Representative parameters of the scan geometry are empirically determined for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Microwave Imager (GMI). Effective fields of view (EFOVs) are computed for the GMI's 13 channels, taking into account the blurring effect of the measurement interval on the instantaneous fields of view (IFOVs). Using a Backus–Gilbert procedure, coefficients are derived that yield an approximate spatial match between synthetic EFOVs of different channels, using the 18.7 GHz channels as a target and with due consideration of the tradeoff between the quality of the fit and noise amplification and edge effects. Modest improvement in resolution is achieved for the 10.65 GHz channels, albeit with slight ringing in the vicinity of coastlines and other sharp brightness temperature gradients. For all other channels, resolution is coarsened to approximate the 18.7 GHz EFOV. It is shown that the resolution matching procedure reduces nonlinear correlations between channels in the presence of coastlines as well as enables the more efficient separation of large brightness temperature variations due to coastlines from the much smaller variations due to other geophysical variables. As a byproduct of this work, we report accurate EFOV resolutions as well as a self-consistent set of parameters for modeling the scan geometry of the GMI.