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Sources of Emissivity Data for RTTOV Users

As of RTTOV v10.1 land surface emissivity atlases have been available within RTTOV itself: 

  • For infra-red instruments, the University of Wisconsin/CIMSS high resolution emissivity atlas is provided. This covers wavelengths in the range 3.7 to 14.3 microns at a spatial resolution of 0.05 degrees lat/lon. 
  • For microwave instruments, the TELSEM atlas and interpolator is available which provides emissivities for frequencies in the range 10 to 190 GHz.
  • Alternatively, for AMSU-A, AMSU-B and MSU, the CNRM microwave atlas may be used.
More information on each of these atlases is available in the RTTOV v10 and RTTOV v11 user guides which also provide references for each one.

The following page is designed to provide information and web links to sources of emissivity information which are suitable for input to RTTOV, both in the IR and MW. This is in response to specific user feedback given in the NWP working group of the International TOVS Working Group.

Specifically information about sources of emissivity atlases and models is provided for 1-300 GHz, 1-15µm. Standard input can be considered to be surface skin temperature, soil moisture, sea ice fraction, sea ice type, snow cover.

The following sources will be separated by spectral range (infrared and microwave) and further into atlases and models.