Satellite ocean vector wind observations

• Main Authors: Portabella, Marcos, Stoffelen, Ad, Turiel, Antonio, Ballabrera-Poy, Joaquim
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: Española; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/85897

I Encuentro de la Oceanografía Física Española (EOF), 13-15 de octubre 2010, Barcelona Scatterometers are real aperture radars that measure the radar backscatter from wind‐generated cm‐size gravity‐capillary waves and provide high density (12.5‐25 km) global surface wind vector fields over the ocean with high quality. Ever since the launch of the European Remote Sensing (ERS‐1) satellite in 1991, the scientific and operational communities have a continuous record of scatterometer wind field observations through a variety of instruments/missions, namely ERS‐1 and ERS‐2 scatterometers, the NASA scatterometer (NSCAT) onboard ADEOS‐1, SeaWinds on QuikSCAT and ADEOS‐II, and the Advanced scatterometer (ASCAT) on MetOp‐A. Moreover, scatterometer data continuity is guaranteed beyond 2020 by the scatterometer on Oceansat‐2 (currently in commissioning phase) and several other upcoming missions, showing the importance of these radar systems for a wide variety of applications, including Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) data assimilation, nowcasting, oceanography, and climate studies. Scatterometers are also successfully used to estimate soil moisture, sea ice extent, drift and type. They typically operate at Ku (~2 cm) or C (~5 cm) band, at vertical and/or horizontal polarization, at a range of incidence angles within [20°, 65°], and are able to observe the same ocean scene from several viewing (azimuth) angles. The radar antenna geometry, the measurement noise, as well as non‐linearities in the relationship between the backscatter measurements and the wind vector complicate the wind retrieval process. In addition, scatterometers are sensitive to geophysical phenomena other than wind, such as confused sea state, rain, land & ice contamination of the radar footprint. These phenomena can distort the wind signal, leading to poor quality retrieved winds. As such, elimination of poor quality data is a prerequisite for the successful use of scatterometer winds. An overview of the scatterometer wind retrieval processing will be presented at the meeting. The presentation will focus on state‐of‐the‐art quality control, inversion and noise filtering techniques. Also a view on future scatterometer systems and emerging (ocean) applications will be briefly discussed Peer Reviewed