Figure 1 is a plot of surface temperature information produced from measurements taken by SSEC's Scanning High resolution Interferometer Sounder (S-HIS) during the Terra-Aqua 2002 field experiment (TX2002) in November. The data displayed in Figure 1 is a spectral average over a narrow range of wavelength (895.4 to 905.5 cm^-1 cm in wavenumber). This image shows the cooler water temperatures along the coast 30 miles NE of Corpus Christi, TX and the warmer water temperature further into the Gulf of Mexico. The S-HIS flew over the Gulf of Mexico on the ER-2 research aircraft at the same time as NASA's Aqua satellite carrying the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS). Figure 2 shows the complete spectrum measured by the S-HIS instrument corresponding to a mean of 56 nadir spectra taken within the colored swath in Figure 1. The ability of the S-HIS to verify the measurements from satellite instruments is necessary to help scientists begin to use the data from new instruments quickly and accurately.

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