Future Technology for Measuring Precipitation & Cloud Dynamics from Space: Part 2. Measurement from Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO)

In the second part of this 2-part presentation, we discuss precipitation measurement technology of future promise that has been proposed for flight in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO). This technology consists of two instruments. The first is a multi-channel PMW radiometer called the Geostationary Observatory for Microwave Atmospheric Sounding (GOMAS) designed for precipitation measurement through atmospheric temperature / moisture profiling. GOMAS is a 44-channel, high-frequency, scanning PMW radiometer measuring across the 52 - 425 GHz spectrum. It is intended to fly on some type of experimental GEO platform (notionally to be provided by either ESA, NASA, or CNSA). The 44 channels are distributed over five gaseous absorption bands consisting of the 54 GHz O₂, 118 GHz O₂, 183 GHz H₂O, 380 GHz H₂O, and 425 GHz O₂ bands. The radiometer obtains precipitation retrieval information by use of the channel-paired oxygen / water vapour band scheme described above.