Vertically Integrated Water Vapour from SSM/I

A dataset of vertically integrated water vapour was derived from homogenized SSM/I observations at the Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF). CM SAF utilized observations of the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) flying onboard Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) platforms F08, F10, F11, F13, F14 and F15 using data in native SSM/I resolution from the Hamburg Ocean-Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite (HOAPS) data set. The CM SAF water vapour dataset from SSM/I has global coverage, i.e., within ±180° longitude and ±80° latitude. The product is only defined over the ice-free ocean surface. This product contains the monthly and daily averages on a regular latitude/longitude grid with a spatial resolution of 0.5° x 0.5° degrees. The temporal coverage of the dataset ranges from July 1987 to August 2006.