Signal Analysis of Microwave Radiometric Emissions in Hurricanes: Part 1 - Ocean Wind Speed Dependence

Electrical engineering communications technologies contribute significantly to environmental remote sensing. In fact, microwave remote sensing is a primary tool for the measurement of critical environmental parameters, such as oceanic surface wind speed and rain rate, in hurricanes. Our understanding of hurricanes and, ultimately, the safety of people and property depend on our ability to monitor hurricanes as they develop and as they approach landfall. The stepped frequency microwave radiometer, SFMR, is a multi-frequency C-band remote sensing instrument that is routinely flown, on aircraft, into hurricanes by NOAA to measure surface wind speed and rain rate. This paper describes the development of a physics-based radiometric model to characterize surface wind speed dependent sea surface emissions. The model is validated against SFMR retrieval algorithms and measurements but, being physics-based, provides a broader, more general analysis capability, as will be described