HAMSR

First Results from the High Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer during

the 2010 GRIP Hurricane Field Campaign

Shannon Brown, Bjorn Lambrigtsen, Richard Denning, Boon Lim, Jordan Tanabe, Alan Tanner

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Shannon.T.Brown@jpl.nasa.gov

KarlEarl

Karl

Scandirection

Flightdirection

Crosstrack

Hei

gh

t

Swath narrowswith altitude

• JPL High Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR) – Microwave radiometer for 3-D all-weather temperature and

water vapor sounding, similar to AMSU on NOAA platform– 25 sounding channels in three bands:

50-60 GHz, 118 GHz, 183 GHz• Cross track scanning

– + 60o off nadir– 65 km swath– 1.9 km resolution

JPL High Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR)

HAMSR PWV

6 10 13 mm8

Upgrades for Global Hawk

• Recently completed extensive upgrades for HAMSR in preparation for Global Hawk deployment under NASA AITT program

• AITT objective was to make a state of the art operational instrument– State-of-the-art Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) added to 118 and 183 GHz

receivers– Data system upgraded to provide real time data access and on-board

science processing– Instrument re-packed into light-weight compact housing for deployment in

forward bay of GH– Perform detailed instrument calibration and characterization (Brown et al.,

TGRS, in press)

New 183 GHz Receiver

• Installed MIMRAM LNA developed by JPL under NASA ESTO ACT program into HAMSR 183 GHZ receivers

• Noise reduced by an order of magnitude– Noise at 0.1-0.2K level will

improve observation of small scale water vapor features

Old HAMSR 183 GHz

New UAV-HAMSR w/ 183 GHz LNA front end

183 1 Old HAMSR New HAMSR

Receiver Noise Temperature

9000 K 580 K

NEDT (7ms, 3 GHz BW channel)

2 K 0.2 K

LNA

Upper sideband reject filter

Mixer

DRO

IF Filterbank

UAV-HAMSR 183 GHz Radiometer

Feed

cm

cm

• Aug-Sep 2010; DC-8, Global Hawk, WB-57

• Improve understanding of tropical cyclone formation and intensification

• First ever over flight of a tropical cyclone with the Global Hawk

NASA GRIP Mission

HAMSR Imagery During GRIP

Hurricane Earl 2010

Hurricane Karl 2010

• 20 eye overpasses• 14 hours over

storm

• Strongest storm ever recorded in Bay of Campeche• Intensified at nearly double the rate considered as “rapid

intensification”• Intensity forecast errors 2x greater the long term

average NHC TC Karl Report, Stewart 2011

Precipitation Structure

Thermodynamic Structure

Composite images of limb corrected brightness temperature at 54.94 [250mb peak] and 55.5 GHz [150 mb peak] show most significant warming within a 30km radius of storm center

Inner Core Thermodynamic Structure

W E

S N

S N

S N

• Warm core anomaly computed relative to average profile 225-250 km from the storm center

• Peak warming at 250

mb level

• The top of inversion layer, indicated by a minimum in qE, is observed around 700 mb

• Moist air is observed

below the inversion layer with drier air aloft

Monitoring Hurricane Intensity with HAMSR• Investigations using

AMSU data have shown strong correlation between 200mb temperature anomaly and hurricane intensityComparisons of AMSU warm core temperature anomaly to

maximum wind speed (left) and central pressure (right) [from Kidder et al. 2000]

• High-resolution observations from HAMSR can be used to predict hurricane intensity and improve algorithms for satellite sensors– Eye-wall contamination is a large error

source for satellite sensors

HAMSR warm-core in Hurricane Erin

AMSU Warm Core Analysis

Brueske et al. 2003

54.94 GHz 9/17 10:58 UTC

55.5 GHz 9/17 00:39 UTC

54.94 GHz 9/17 00:39 UTC

55.5 GHz 9/17 10:58 UTC

AMSU Images from Univ. of Wisc-CIMSS

Time Evolution of Inner Temperature

Warm anomaly propagated to lower levels as the storm intensified with the peak warm anomaly increasing by ~4C

Time Evolution of Inner Core Relative Humidity

The relative humidity in the upper troposphere decreased as lower troposphere remained moist

Hurricane Karl 2010

500 mb

400 mb

250 mb

• Correlation between warm core anomaly at different levels to minimum pressure and maximum sustained winds from NHC best track

• Sensitivity between +5 to +6K/ms-1 and - 2.7 to -3.6K/mb

• Strongest correlation observed in mid-troposphere

• HAMSR Level 1B data publically available• Level 1B product contains quality controlled, calibrated, geo-located

brightness temperatures for the Earth scene• L1B files in netCDF format, ~500MB/24 hours• Over 120 hours total for 5 flights

L1B files: ftp://grip.nsstc.nasa.gov/grip/HAMSR/GE quick looks: http://grip.jpl.nasa.gov/

8/28

9/16

9/01

9/12

9/23

JPL GRIP Data Portal

: http://grip.jpl.nasa.gov

Summary

• UAV-HAMSR has deployed on the GH during GRIP 2010 and WISPAR 2011 – data available

• Demonstrated capability to monitor real time evolution of tropical cyclones

• Next mission will be HS3 – 2012-2014• Flights begin Aug 25, 2011

HAMSR Development TimelineIIP-98 “High Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer on a Remotely Piloted Aircraft” – Lambrigtsen (PI)

ACT-05 “Miniature MMIC Low Mass/power Radiometer Modules for the 180 GHz GeoSTAR Array” - Kangaslahti (PI)

AITT-07 “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle - High Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer for Atmospheric State Reconnaissance” - Lambrigtsen (PI)

1998

2012

2001: CAMEX-4 on ER2

2005: TCSP on ER2

2006: NAMMA on DC-8

2010: GRIP on Global Hawk

2011: WISPAR on Global Hawk

2012-2014: HS-3 on Global Hawk

LNA

Upper sideband reject filter

Mixer

DRO

IF Filterbank

UAV-HAMSR 183 GHz Radiometer

Feed

AIST-08 “Technology Infusion for the Real Time Mission Monitor - Goodman (PI)

Tropical Cyclone Reconnaissance

• HAMSR on the Global Hawk is a powerful tool for monitoring the thermodynamic evolution of tropical cyclones when loitering near eye of storm for periods up to 24 hours– Track intensity by observing warm core anomaly and 3-D

precipitation structure– Useful for validating satellite retrievals

• Long duration data also key for demonstrating geostationary microwave sounding science -> PATH mission

WISPAR Atmospheric Rivers Flights

• HAMSR real-time PWV data used to time release of dropsondes near atmospheric rivers

• Data available within 10-30 seconds of acquisition

PWV

CLW

PWV

HAMSR GRIP Ground Data System

GHOC

HAMSR ground data processor

netC

DF

L1B

file

sJP

L Hur

rican

e Por

tal

HAMSR website

quick look images

RTMM

Commanding

Data downlink

HAMSR software upgraded after GRIP to provide real-time imagery over Iridium

Successfully tested during 2011 WISPAR campaign

Past 30 minutes

Past 60 minutes

Full Dataset

Select HAMSR channel – TB imagery-Full data set, past 30 minutes or past 60 minutes

HAMSR RTMM Display for GRIP