SMAP L-Band Passive Microwave Observations Of Ocean Surface Wind During Severe Storms
| Type | Article | ||||||||||||
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| Date | 2016-12 | ||||||||||||
| Language | English | ||||||||||||
| Author(s) | Yueh Simon H.1, Fore Alexander G.1, Tang Wenqing1, Hayashi Akiko1, Stiles Bryan1, Reul Nicolas 2, Weng Yonghui3, 4, Zhang Fuqing3, 4 |
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| Affiliation(s) | 1 : CALTECH, Jet Prop Lab, 4800 Oak Grove Dr, Pasadena, CA 91125 USA. 2 : Inst Francais Rech Exploitat Mer IFREMER, Lab Oceanog Phys & Spatial LOPS, F-16801 Plouzane, France. 3 : Penn State Univ, Dept Meteorol, 503 Walker Bldg, University Pk, PA 16802 USA. 4 : Penn State Univ, Ctr Adv Data Assimilat & Predictabil Tech, University Pk, PA 16802 USA. |
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| Source | Ieee Transactions On Geoscience And Remote Sensing (0196-2892) (Ieee-inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc), 2016-12 , Vol. 54 , N. 12 , P. 7339-7350 | ||||||||||||
| DOI | 10.1109/TGRS.2016.2600239 | ||||||||||||
| WOS© Times Cited | 59 | ||||||||||||
| Keyword(s) | Hurricane, microwave remote sensing, ocean surface wind, radar, radiometer | ||||||||||||
| Abstract | The L-band passive microwave data from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory are investigated for remote sensing of ocean surface winds during severe storms. The surface winds of Joaquin derived from the real-time analysis of the Center of Advanced Data Assimilation and Predictability Techniques in the Penn State University support the linear extrapolation of the Aquarius and SMAP Geophysical Model Functions (GMFs) to hurricane force winds. We apply the SMAP and Aquarius GMFs to the retrieval of ocean surface wind vectors from the SMAP radiometer data to take advantage of SMAP’s two-look geometry. The SMAP radiometer wind speeds are compared with the winds from other satellites and numerical weather models for validation. The root-mean-square-difference (RMSD) with WindSat or SSMIS is 1.7 m/s below 20 m/s wind speeds. The RMSD with the ECMWF direction is 18 degrees for wind speeds between 12 and 30 m/s. We find that the correlation is sufficiently high between the maximum wind speeds retrieved by SMAP with 60 km resolution and the best track peak winds estimated by the National Hurricane Center and Joint Typhoon Warning Center to allow them to be estimated by SMAP with a correlation coefficient of 0.8 and an underestimation by 8 to 18 percent on average, which is likely due to the effects of spatial averaging. There is also a very good agreement with the airborne Stepped Frequency Radiometer (SFMR) wind speeds with an average RMSD of 4.6 m/s for wind speeds in the range of 20 to 40 m/s. |
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