Passive microwave radiance estimation by coupling a land surface emissivity model with CRTM

Land surface emissivity can be used for several purposes including land surface characterization and atmospheric retrieval over land. It is quite challengeable to simulate passive microwave radiances over land. This paper focuses on land surface emissivity retrieval and radiance simulation under snow-free conditions on a global scale for AMSR-E sensor configurations. A surface emission model (Qp) is coupled within Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM) which takes volumetric scattering of dense medium into consideration. The Qp model has been proved that it has higher accuracy and more suitable for the high-frequency and high-incidence AMSR-E data analysis. The results show that estimated radiances are comparable to passive microwave observations from satellite for different land surface vegetation types. The Root Mean Square Errors (RMSEs) are less than 20K and the mean errors are generally less than 10K.