ADEOS-II/AMSR

AMSR is an eight-frequency, total-power microwave radiometer with dual polarization (except two vertical channels in the 50GHz band). Conical scanning is employed to observe the Earth's surface with a constant incidence angle. Multifrequency measurement is realized by an array of primary horns. Calibration counts are obtained every scan by using the hot load target (around 300K) and the cold-sky mirror to introduce the temperature of deep space (around 3K). The offset-parabolic antenna is the largest space-borne microwave radiometer antenna of its kind. A spatial resolution better than before enables us not only to resolve small-scale features, including clouds, precipitation, sea ice, and land, but also to improve retrieval accuracy of geophysical parameters.

In addition to the typical frequency channels, 6-GHz and 50-GHz channels have been added to obtain information on sea surface temperature through clouds, soil moisture, and atmospheric temperature.

Center Frequency (GHz)	6.925	10.65	18.7	23.8	36.5	50.3	52.8	89.0	89.0
								A	B
Band Width (MHz)	350	100	200	400	1000	200	400	3000
Polarization	Vertical and Horizontal					Vertical		Vertical and Horizontal
3dB Beam Width (°)	1.8	1.2	0.65	0.75	0.35	0.25	0.25	0.15	0.15
IFOV (km)	40×70	27×46	14×25	17×29	8×14	6×10	6×10	3×6
Sampling Interval (km)	10×10							5×5
Temperature Sensitivity (K)	0.34	0.7	0.7	0.6	0.7	1.8	1.6	1.2
Incidence Angle (°)	55.0								54.5
Dynamic Range (K)	2.7 - 340
Swath Width (km)	Approximately 1600
Integration Time (msec)	2.5							1.2
Quantization (bit)	12	10
Scan Cycle (sec)	1.5