Improved hurricane wind speed algorithm for the seawinds satellite scatterometer

Author

Adams, Ian S. ; Jones, W. Linwood ; Park, Jun Dong ; Kasparis, Takis ; Chen, Shyui S. ; Tenerelli, Joseph E.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Univ. of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

Volume

4

fYear

2002

fDate

29-31 Oct. 2002

Firstpage

1973

Abstract

Satellite microwave scatterometer wind retrievals, given in the standard product (e.g., QuikSCAT L2B), badly underestimate the peak wind speed in tropical cyclones. One important reason is that the effects of precipitation on the normalized radar cross section sigma-0 are neglected in the processing algorithms. This paper presents results of a first attempt to provide sigma-0 corrections, which account for the atmospheric attenuation of the rain. Atmospheric transmissivity is derived from the QuikSCAT Radiometer (QRAD) excess brightness temperatures taken simultaneously with sigma-0 measurements. When applied, retrieved wind speeds show improved agreement with numerical hurricane models (PSU/NCAR MM5) where there is moderate to high rainfall.

Keywords

atmospheric radiation; oceanographic techniques; radar cross-sections; radiometry; remote sensing; storms; wind; PSU/NCAR MM5; QRAD; QuikSCAT L2B; QuikSCAT Radiometer; atmospheric attenuation; atmospheric transmissivity; brightness temperature; hurricane wind speed algorithm; normalized radar cross section; numerical hurricane model; peak wind speed; precipitation effects; processing algorithm; rain; satellite microwave scatterometer; seawinds satellite scatterometer; sigma-0 correction; standard product; tropical cyclone; wind retrieval; Attenuation; Brightness temperature; Hurricanes; Microwave radiometry; Radar cross section; Radar measurements; Rain; Satellite broadcasting; Tropical cyclones; Wind speed;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

OCEANS '02 MTS/IEEE

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7534-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/OCEANS.2002.1191935

Filename

1191935