Title

Evaluation of hurricane ocean vector winds from WindSat

Authors

Authors

I. S. Adams; C. C. Hennon; L. Jones;K. A. Ahmad

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing

Keywords

hurricane; ocean vector wind; passive microwave; polarimetry; tropical; cyclone (TC); WindSat; SSM/I; RADIOMETERS; FIELDS; SPEED; HRD; Geochemistry & Geophysics; Engineering, Electrical & Electronic; Remote; Sensing; Imaging Science & Photographic Technology

Abstract

The ability to accurately measure ocean surface wind vectors from space in all weather conditions is important in many scientific and operational usages. One highly desirable application of satellite-based wind vector retrievals is to provide realistic estimates of tropical cyclone intensity for hurricane monitoring. Historically, the extreme environmental conditions in tropical cyclones (TCs) have been a challenge to traditional space-based wind vector sensing provided by microwave scatterometers. With the advent of passive microwave polarimetry, an alternate tool for estimating surface wind conditions in the TC has become available. This paper evaluates the WindSat polarimetric radiometer's ability to accurately sense winds within TCs. Three anecdotal cases studies are presented from the 2003 Atlantic Hurricane season. Independent surface wind estimates from aircraft flights and other platforms are used to provide surface wind fields for comparison to WindSat retrievals. Results of a subjective comparison of wind flow patterns are presented as well as quantitative statistics for point location comparisons of wind speed and direction.

Journal Title

Ieee Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing

Volume

44

Issue/Number

3

Publication Date

1-1-2006

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

656

Last Page

667

WOS Identifier

WOS:000235785800018

ISSN

0196-2892

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