[plane sounds] My name is Rachael Kroodsma, I'm with
the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and I am instrument scientist for
CoSMIR. CoSMIR has very similar
frequencies to what GMI, the microwave radiometer
on GPM has. And so by flying CoSMIR on
the DC-8 and especially doing underflights with GPM
passes over us, we'll be able to relate
the measurements we see from CoSMIR with GMI, and
by that way we can validate the measurements. What a radiometer
does is that it measures the radiation that's naturally emitted from
the Earth. In this case we're measuring the rain and snow, so
there's radiation that's naturally emitted from the rain and the snow in the microwave
spectrum, and so this is a microwave radiometer and it's measuring that
radiation. My expertise is with microwave radiometer calibration.
And so I do a lot of data analysis,
checking out calibration of microwave radiometers.
[laughs] I just think it's pretty cool to be
part of the instruments and to be out in the field and just see
how everything works and how it all comes
together and be a part of that. [music]