Associate Scientist mission delivers improved infrared emissivity atlas for RTTOV

A recent associate scientist mission hosted by the University of Wisconsin has improved the global land surface infrared emissivity atlas for RTTOV v12.3 (the next release) which should enable more accurate simulations over land for infrared sounders. The current version of the RTTOV v12 CAMEL module is based on the NASA MEaSUREs CAMEL monthly mean land surface emissivity database for the single year of 2007. The new atlas is based on the full CAMEL climatology for 2000 to 2016. It provides a more sophisticated treatment of snow, and includes emissivity standard deviations computed from the climatology. More information can be found in the Final Report from the mission.