Abstract/Summary

Providing uncertainties in satellite datasets used for Earth observation can be a daunting pro-spect because of the many processing stages and input data required to convert raw detector counts to calibrated radiances. The Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) was designed to provide measurements of the Earth’s surface for operational and climate appli-cations. In this paper the authors describe the traceability chain and derivation of uncertainty es-timates for the thermal infrared channel radiometry. Starting from the instrument model, the contributing input quantities are identified to build up an uncertainty effects tree. The characteri-sation of each input effect is described, and uncertainty estimates provided which are used to derive the combined uncertainties as a function of scene temperature. The SLSTR Level-1 data products provide uncertainty estimates for fully random effects (noise) and systematic effects that can be mapped for each image pixel, examples of which are shown.