RETRIEVING OVER-OCEAN PRECIPITABLE WATER FROM THE SSM/I MEASUREMENTS WITH SEVERAL REGRESSION ALGORITHMS^*

A collocated SSM/I and radiosonde measurement data set provided by the NASDA(Japan) was used to retrieve the total precipitable water(PW) over oceans.The retrieval results obtained with several regression algorithms were compared against the radiosonde measurements.It is shown that:(a) the routinely operational algorithm of Alishouse et al.(1990) yields significant underestimation in high PW regime and overestimation in low PW regime;(b) a cubic correction by Colton and Poe(1994) is not sufficient and globally improves slightly the retrieval results;and(c) the regression algorithm with the form of brightness temperature(Tb) function In(280-Tb) gives a little largely scattered retrievals in whole PW range but without considerable over-and underestimates in low and high PW regimes.To improve the estimation of the oceanic precipitable water from the SSM/I measurements,a composite algorithm with different forms of Tb function in low.medium and high PW regimes is proposed and tested.