Geostationary Satellite Observation of Precipitable Water Vapor Using an Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) based Reconstruction Technique over Eastern China

Remote Sensing

Man Sing Wong²  Xiaomeng Jin⁴  Zhizhao Liu²  Janet Elizabeth Nichol²  Shirong Ye³  Peng Jiang³  Pak Wai Chan¹  Richard Gloaguen⁵ 

[1] Hong Kong Observatory, Kowloon, Hong Kong; E-Mail:;Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong; E-Mails:;GNSS Research Center, Wuhan University, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430079, China; E-Mails:;Center for Sustainability and Global Environment, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53726, USA; E-Mail:Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong;

关键词: empirical orthogonal function;    diurnal cycle;    geostationary satellite;    precipitable water vapor;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs70505879

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Water vapor, as one of the most important greenhouse gases, is crucial for both climate and atmospheric studies. Considering the high spatial and temporal variations of water vapor, a timely and accurate retrieval of precipitable water vapor (PWV) is urgently needed, but has long been constrained by data availability. Our study derived the vertically integrated precipitable water vapor over eastern China using Multi-functional Transport Satellite (MTSAT) data, which is in geostationary orbit with high temporal resolution. The missing pixels caused by cloud contamination were reconstructed using an Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) decomposition method over both spatial and temporal dimensions. GPS meteorology data were used to validate the retrieval and the reconstructed results. The diurnal variation of PWV over eastern China was analyzed using harmonic analysis, which indicates that the reconstructed PWV data can depict the diurnal cycle of PWV caused by evapotranspiration and local thermal circulation.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.