Over the oceans satellite infrared spectral measurements in the 18/am water vapor band and the 11/am window region have been used to de-

The all-weather, global determination of sea surface temperature (SST) has been identified as a requirement needed to support naval operations. The target SST accuracy i s 21.0 K with a surface resolution of 10 km. enology and technology of remote passive microwave sensing of the ocean environment over the past decade have demonstrated that this objective i s presently a t t a i nab1 e. and trade-off studies have been conducted to define the frequency, polarization, scan geometry, antenna size, and other essential parameters of the Low-Frequency Microwave Radiometer (LFMR). I t will be a dual-polarized, dual-frequency system a t 5.2 and 10.4 GHz using a 5.9-meter deployable mesh surface antenna. Remote Ocean Sensing System (N-ROSS) s a t e l l i t e scheduled t o be launched i n l a t e 1988.

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A physical-statistical model using Nimbus I1 MRIR (medium resolution infrared) radiometer channel 2 (10-11 pm) data is formed to estimate cloud cover. In the model, cloud cover is estimated from the probability density distribution of DV2 values defined to be the differences between the earth surface temperatures and the corresponding channel 2 observed equivalent black-body temperatures. For cloud type estimation, channel 1 (6.4-6.9 pm) and channel 2 (10-11 pm) data are used simultaneously in a joint distribution model. Bivariate DV1 and DV2 frequency distributions portray distinct features associated with different cloud patterns from which it was possible t o estimate the cloud coverage for different levels in the troposphere. The major limiting factor in estimathg cloud coverage in this study was the areal resolution of the MRIR radiometer. The results indicate that a reliable global climatology may be formed, using higher resolution radiometers combined with irradiance information from other spectral intervals.

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