Study of the Effect of Temporal Sampling Frequency on DSCOVR Observations Using the GEOS-5 Nature Run Results (Part I): Earth’s Radiation Budget

Remote Sens. 2016, 8(2), 98; doi:10.3390/rs8020098

Author

Daniel Holdaway ^1,2,*  and Yuekui Yang ^2,3

¹

Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MA 20771, USA

²

Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research, Universities Space Research Association, Columbia, MA 20771, USA

³

Climate and Radiation Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MA 20771, USA

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. 

Academic Editors: Yudong Tian, Alfredo R. Huete and Prasad S. Thenkabail

Received: 30 November 2015 / Revised: 6 January 2016 / Accepted: 20 January 2016 / Published: 27 January 2016

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Uncertainties in Remote Sensing)

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Abstract 

Satellites always sample the Earth-atmosphere system in a finite temporal resolution. This study investigates the effect of sampling frequency on the satellite-derived Earth radiation budget, with the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) as an example. The output from NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System Version 5 (GEOS-5) Nature Run is used as the truth. The Nature Run is a high spatial and temporal resolution atmospheric simulation spanning a two-year period. The effect of temporal resolution on potential DSCOVR observations is assessed by sampling the full Nature Run data with 1-h to 24-h frequencies. The uncertainty associated with a given sampling frequency is measured by computing means over daily, monthly, seasonal and annual intervals and determining the spread across different possible starting points. The skill with which a particular sampling frequency captures the structure of the full time series is measured using correlations and normalized errors. Results show that higher sampling frequency gives more information and less uncertainty in the derived radiation budget. A sampling frequency coarser than every 4 h results in significant error. Correlations between true and sampled time series also decrease more rapidly for a sampling frequency less than 4 h. View Full-Text

Keywords: radiation budget;  satellite sampling frequency;  DSCOVR;  EPIC;  time series;  Arctic;  climate change;  GEOS-5;  Nature Run

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