Aquarius: An Instrument to Monitor Sea Surface Salinity From Space

Author

Le Vine, David M. ; Lagerloef, Gary S E ; Colomb, Fernando Raúl ; Yueh, Simon H. ; Pellerano, Fernando A.

Author_Institution

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt

Volume

45

Issue

7

fYear

2007

fDate

7/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2040

Lastpage

2050

Abstract

Aquarius is a combined passive/active L-band microwave instrument that is being developed to map the salinity field at the surface of the ocean from space. The data will support studies of the coupling between ocean circulation, global water cycle, and climate. Aquarius is part of the Aquarius/Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientiflcas-D mission, which is a partnership between the U.S. (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and Argentina (Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales). The primary science objective of this mission is to monitor the seasonal and interannual variation of the large-scale features of the surface salinity field in the open ocean with a spatial resolution of 150 km and a retrieval accuracy of 0.2 psu globally on a monthly basis.

Keywords

oceanographic equipment; radiometry; remote sensing; Aquarius; Aquarius/Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas-D mission; Argentina; Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales; National Aeronautics and Space Administration; US; climate; combined passive/active L-band microwave instrument; global water cycle; interannual variation; ocean circulation; sea surface salinity; seasonal variation; surface features; Instruments; L-band; Large-scale systems; Microwave radiometry; NASA; Ocean temperature; Remote monitoring; Sea surface; Sea surface salinity; Space technology; Microwave radiometry; microwave remote sensing; ocean salinity; scatterometer;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0196-2892

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TGRS.2007.898092

Filename

4261063