Total Precipitable Water (3 mb)Real-time Total Precipitable Water
Description:
The land, ocean, and atmosphere all emit microwave radiation which can be measured by sensors, allowing scientists to study various aspects of the Earth. The Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit, AMSU, is one such sensor that measures very low levels of microwave radiation naturally emitted by the Earth at different frequencies. Even water vapor emits microwave radiation that can be measured by the AMSU. The AMSU is attached to the NOAA Polar Environmental Orbiting Satellites NOAA 15, NOAA 16, and NOAA 17. Each satellite provides full coverage of the Earth everyday by orbiting the globe 14.1 times per day collecting a swath of data 1426 miles wide on each orbit.
Total precipitable water is the amount of water that can be obtained from the surface to the "top" of the atmosphere if all of the water and water vapor were condensed to a liquid phase. The tropics, which are warm and very humid, typically have high total precipitable water because there is so much water vapor in the air. The frequency on the AMSU can be set to measure the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. By integrating this data over a volume, the total precipitable water can be calculated. Concentrated areas of precipitable water vapor are usually indictive of clouds and precipitation. The total precipitable water is reported from 0 to 75mm (about 3 inches) in 12.5mm increments as indicated by the color bar below. This dataset is available in real-time from January 1, 2006 through today and is updated hourly
Notable Features:
- Tropics generally have high total precipitable water
- Areas of high total precipitable water typically indicated clouds and precipitation
Data Category
Major: Atmosphere
Keywords:
Atmosphere, total precipitable water, satellite
| Data Set Name | AMSU Total Precipitable Water Vapor (amsu-pw-rt) |
| Data Set Source | Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit Project |
| Data Set Developer | National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service |
| Visualization Developer | Steve Albers NOAA/GSD |
| Audio | No |
| Download | FTP |