Scientific Developments and the EPS-SG scatterometer

• Published in: IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing
• Main Authors: Stoffelen, Ad, Aaboe, Signe, Calvet, Jean-Christophe, Cotton, James, de Chiara, Giovanna, Figa, J., Mouche, Alexis Aurélien, Portabella, Marcos, Scipal, Klaus, Wagner, Wolfgang
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 2017
• Subjects: Sea ice
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/153292; https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2017.2696424

12 pages, 10 figures, 1 table.-- © 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works The second-generation exploitation of meteorological satellite polar system (EPS-SG) C-band-wavelength scatterometer instrument (called SCA), planned for launch in 2022, has a direct heritage from the successful advanced scatterometer (ASCAT) flown on the current EPS satellites. In addition, SCA will represent three major innovations with respect to ASCAT, namely: 1) Cross polarization and horizontal copolarization; 2) a nominal spatial resolution of 25 km; and 3) 20% greater spatial coverage than ASCAT. The associated expected science and application benefits that led the SCA design are discussed with respect to ocean, land, and sea ice applications for near-real time, climate monitoring, and research purposes. Moreover, an option to implement an ocean Doppler capability to retrieve the ocean motion vector is briefly discussed as well. In conclusion, the SCA instrument innovations are well set to provide timely benefits in all the main application areas of the scatterometer (winds, soil moisture, sea ice) and can be expected to contribute to new and more sophisticated meteorological, oceanographic, land, sea ice, and climate services in the forthcoming SCA era Peer Reviewed