The Influence of Satellite Observation Angle on Tropical Cyclone Intensity Estimation using the Deviation Angle Variance Technique

• Published in: IGARSS 2019 - 2019 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium
• Main Authors: Hu, L, Ritchie, EA, Scott Tyo, J, Tyo, Scott
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 2019
• Subjects: 37 Earth Sciences; 3701 Atmospheric Sciences; anzsrc-for: 37 Earth Sciences; anzsrc-for: 3701 Atmospheric Sciences; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/unsworks_71938; https://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/bitstreams/0e12687d-2684-4327-90ee-ebe4f2a044eb/download; https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS.2019.8898743

Based on 12 years (2004-2015) of GOES-East satellite infrared (IR) imagery over the North Atlantic basin, the diurnal cycle of the tropical cyclone (TC) Deviation Angle Variation (DAV) value is analysed, and a backward 24-hr time average DAV is selected to filter the noise in the DAV-TC intensity estimation. The effect of satellite observation angle on the DAV-TC intensity estimation is analysed in theory, in a case study, and in the longer-term statistics. Based on these results, an improvement to the DAV-TC intensity estimation is presented and evaluated in this study. The results show that, after taking the observation angle into account, the new DAV-TC intensity estimation is shown to produce smaller errors and higher correlations than the previous versions, especially for major hurricanes.