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Abstract Measurements from the thermal infrared split window channels of the AVHRR sensor were investigated for their relationship to the total atmospheric water vapour amount over land surfaces. The difference in brightness temperature between the AVHRR channel 4 and 5 (10·3–11·3μm and 11·4–12·3μm respectively) was found to be a linear function of total precipitable water, for several stations in differing climatic regimes. For each individual location the total precipitable water was estimated with a standard error ranging from 0·22 to 0·48 cm for the complete range of conditions from wet to dry season or summer to winter. For mid-latitude continental locations there is very little influence of atmospheric aerosols on the relationship while for the African Sahel region the effect of large airborne particulates with a silicate component introduces a significant effect at large values of aerosol optical depth due to absorption. The influence of spectral emissivity variation in the split window region was also observed for arid regions where there is a significant quartz component to the soil. It is concluded that for regional retrieval of precipitable water, this technique provides sufficient accuracy for application to correction of near-infrared satellite data such as AVHRR channel 2 (0·71 –0·98 μm), however the site specific relation between T 4-T 5 and PW needs to be established with independent PW measurements.
Eck et al. (Tue,) studied this question.