Aquarius radiometer status

Author

Le Vine, D.M. ; Piepmeier, Jeffrey R. ; Dinnat, E.P. ; de Matthaeis, Paolo ; Utku, Cuneyt ; Abraham, S. ; Lagerloef, G.S.E. ; Meissner, Thomas ; Wentz, Frank

Author_Institution

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

fYear

2014

fDate

24-27 March 2014

Firstpage

226

Lastpage

227

Abstract

Aquarius was launched on June 10, 2011 as part of the Aquarius/SAC-D observatory and the instrument has been operating continuously since being turned on in August of the same year. The initial map of sea surface salinity was released one month later (September) and the quality of the retrieval has continuously improved since then. The Aquarius radiometers include several special features such as measurement of the third Stokes parameter, fast sampling, and careful thermal control, and a combined passive/active instrument. Aquarius is working well and in addition to helping measure salinity, the radiometer special features are generating new results.

Keywords

oceanographic equipment; oceanographic techniques; radiometers; remote sensing; salinity (geophysical); AD 2011 06 10; Aquarius radiometer status; Aquarius-SAC-D observatory; active instrument; passive instrument; sea surface salinity; thermal control; third Stokes parameter; Extraterrestrial measurements; Instruments; Microwave radiometry; Observatories; Remote sensing; Sea measurements; L-band; Microwave Remote Sensing; Radiometry;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Radiometry and Remote Sensing of the Environment (MicroRad), 2014 13th Specialist Meeting on

Conference_Location

Pasadena, CA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-4645-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MicroRad.2014.6878945

Filename

6878945