Signal Analysis of Microwave Radiometric Emissions in Hurricanes: Part 2 - Oceanic Rain Rate Dependence

Communications technologies contribute significantly to environmental remote sensing. In fact, microwave remote sensing of surface wind speed and rain rate in hurricanes is critical to the numerical hurricane forecasting capability. The stepped frequency microwave radiometer, SFMR, is a C-band remote sensing instrument that is routinely flown into hurricanes by NOAA to measure surface wind speed and rain rate. This paper reports on a study of rain rate dependence in microwave signal analysis in hurricane observations and a radiative transfer model, RTM, developed for the design and calibration of future systems. SFMR measurements in recent hurricanes were used to tune the RTM, and comparisons to SFMR surface wind speed and rain rate retrievals were used to validate the RTM