The MicroRad conference is a meeting that covers various research topics dealing with passive remote sensing of the Earth's surface and atmosphere. Thereby, instrument engineers meet instrument users leading to a large diversity of presented research fields, e. g. from designing microwave radiometers to deriving geophysical parameters from the radiometer's measurements.
The conference provided a nice overview over new technologies and the state-of-the-art of current remote sensors. A major topic was the analysis and calibration of satellite measurements showing both the potential and the difficulties that go along with air-born antenna systems. The second major topic was deriving hydrological information of the Earth's surface (soil moisture, sea ice extend) using low microwave frequencies from space, whereas it seems that the main problems originate from coarse spatial resolution and radio-interference with non-scientific emission sources (e.g. military).

I gave a poster presentation in the session “sensor calibration”. The feedback was very positive and I had several enriching discussion about my research topic. People were interested in the results I presented, since the calibration of ground-based sensors is a delicate topic in the microwave community. Although concrete plans do not yet exist, there are ideas about future collaboration and exchange with other researchers.

Nils Küchler

PhD student

PhD Project: „Cloud Observations Using Passive and Active Microwave Radiometry“

Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology

Calibrating Ground-Based Microwave Radiometers: Uncertainty and Drifts (Poster Presentation; awarded as the best poster of the MicroRad 2016)
http://microrad2016.org/Papers/viewpapers.asp?papernum=1019