The NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (NAMMA) campaign is a field research investigation sponsored by the Science Mission Directorate of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This mission was based in the Cape Verde Islands, 350 miles off the coast of Senegal in west Africa. Commencing in August 2006, NASA scientists employed surface observation networks and ... aircraft to characterize the evolution and structure of African Easterly Waves (AEWs) and Mesoscale Convective Systems over continental western Africa, and their associated impacts on regional water and energy budgets. NASA will also made extensive use of its orbiting satellites (including Aqua, TRMM, and the recently-launched Cloudsat/CALIPSO) and modeling capabilities to improve its forecasts and flight plans.
HAMSR is a 25-channel microwave atmospheric sounder operating as a cross-track scanner. it operates in three frequency bands centered around 53, 118 and 183 GHz. HAMSR functionality is similar to AMSU-A/B, but with additional channels. There are three bands: an 8-channel band near 50-GHz, used for primary temperature sounding; a 10-channel band near 118 GHz, used for secondary temperature sounding and assessment of scattering; and a 7-channel band near 183 GHz, used for water vapor (humidity) sounding. The instrument is continuously self-calibrating using internal calibration targets. Radiometric sensitivity at the composite sampling cells provided in the archive is typically 0.1 K and ranges up to 0.25 K for the stratospheric channels. Calibration accuracy is estimated at better than 1 K for temperature sounding and better than 2 K for water vapor sounding. Temperature weighting function peaks are distributed between the surface and the flight altitude.