A Ku-Band Active/Passive Wind Vector Retrieval Over the Ocean

This work investigates the design of an innovative conical scanning Ku-band (13.4 GHz) scatterometer/radiometer for measuring ocean vector winds. The sensor design is based upon actual measurements obtained by the SeaWinds scatterometer and the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR), which operated simultaneously on JAXA´s Advanced Earth Observing Satellite-II (ADEOS-II) during 2003. This new design combines the conventional forward and aft-looking two-beam microwave scatterometer (SeaWinds) measurements with simultaneous linearly polarized passive microwave brightness temperatures. The unique aspect of this remote sensing technique is that it operates at a single microwave frequency, and it combines vertical and horizontal polarized microwave brightness temperatures with the scatterometer normalized cross sections to retrieve unambiguous ocean wind vectors. This technique has the potential to significantly improve the Ocean Vector Winds retrievals for future conical-scanning microwave scatterometers.