The Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS) is a five-channel passive microwave radiometer, with channels from 89 to 190 GHz. It is very similar in design to the AMSU-B instrument, but some channel frequencies have been altered. It is used to study profiles of atmospheric water vapor and provide improved input data to the cloud-clearing algorithms in the IR and MW sounder suites. Instruments were launched on NOAA's POES satellite series starting with NOAA-18 launched in May 2005 and the European Space Agency's MetOp series starting with MetOp-A launched in October 2006, continuing with MetOp-B launched in September 2012 and Metop-C launched in November 2018. The follow on instrument to MHS is MWS on the Metop-SGA satellites.
The Microwave Humidity Sounder was designed and developed by Astrium EU in Portsmouth, UK, under contract to EUMETSAT.
Instrument characteristics
Heritage: AMSU-B, HSB Swath: 1650 km Spatial resolution: 17 km horizontal at nadir Mass: 63 kg Duty cycle: 100% Power: 74 W (BOL) Data rate: 4.2 kbit/s Field of View: ± 49.5 degrees cross-track Instrument Instantaneous Field of View: 1.1 degrees circular
Table 1: Radiometric characteristics of the MHS
Channel Number AMSU-B Channel Number Frequency (GHz) AMSU-B Frequency (GHz) Bandwidth (MHz) Instrument Sensitivity NEDT (K) Polarization 1 16 89.0 89.0 ± 0.9 2800 0.22 Vertical 2 17 157.0 150 ± 0.9 2800 0.34 Vertical 3 18 183.311 ± 1.00 183.31 ± 1.00 2 x 500 0.51 Horizontal 4 19 183.311 ± 3.00 183.31 ± 3.00 2 x 1000 0.40 Horizontal 5 20 190.311 183.31 ± 7.00 2200 0.46 Vertical
References
External links NOAA KLM User's Guide