SeaWinds: a scanning scatterometer for ADEOS-II-science overview

The NASA SeaWinds instrument is a conically scanning, dual pencil-beam, Ku-band scatterometer that will fly on the NASDA ADEOS-II satellite mission in early 1999. The scanning pencil beam approach allows σ₀ measurements and vector winds to be acquired in a continuous swath nearly 1800 km wide. The SeaWinds design has several inherent advantages over the fan-beam approach used for previous scatterometers, including greater accuracy, simplicity, more extensive coverage, easier accommodation, and scalability. This paper describes the scientific aspects of the instrument, emphasizing key differences in the measurements and processing relative to fan-beam scatterometers. A separate paper, Wu et al. (1994) provides a detailed description of the SeaWinds instrument and performance.