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Brigham Young University

2004

Scatterometer

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Frequency Estimation Of Linear Fm Scatterometer Pulses Received By The Seawinds Calibration Ground Station, Spencer S. Haycock Aug 2004

Frequency Estimation Of Linear Fm Scatterometer Pulses Received By The Seawinds Calibration Ground Station, Spencer S. Haycock

Theses and Dissertations

The SeaWinds Calibration Ground Station (CGS) is a passive ground station used to receive and sample transmissions from the SeaWinds scatterometer. During post processing, the received transmissions are characterized in order to verify proper instrument operation and to eliminate error in satellite telemetry and in data products generated from processing SeaWinds data. Sources of instrument error include uncertainties in transmitted power, pulse timing, and carrier frequency drift. Identifying these errors prevents their propagation to data products. A key aspect of this analysis involves accurately estimating the parameters of the SeaWinds transmissions. As better parameter estimates are researched and developed, the …


Microwave Remote Sensing Of The Greenland Ice Sheet: Models And Applications, Ivan S. Ashcraft Jul 2004

Microwave Remote Sensing Of The Greenland Ice Sheet: Models And Applications, Ivan S. Ashcraft

Theses and Dissertations

Spaceborne microwave sensors are powerful tools for monitoring the impacts of global climate change on the Greenland ice sheet. This dissertation focuses on refining methods for applying microwave data in Greenland studies by using new simple theoretical and empirical models to investigate (1) azimuth anisotropies in the data, (2) the microwave signature of the snow surface, (3) detection of snow melt, and (4) classification of snow melt. The results are applicable for identifying geophysical properties of the snow surface and monitoring changes on the ice sheet in relation to melt duration/extent, accumulation, and wind patterns. Azimuth dependence of the normalized …


A New Method For Melt Detection On Antarctic Ice-Shelves And Scatterometer Calibration Verification, Lukas Brad Kunz Jul 2004

A New Method For Melt Detection On Antarctic Ice-Shelves And Scatterometer Calibration Verification, Lukas Brad Kunz

Theses and Dissertations

Ku-band dual-polarization radar backscatter measurements from the SeaWinds on QuikScat scatterometer and microwave radiometer measurements from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) are used to determine periods of surface melt and freeze in the Antarctic ice-shelves. The normalized radar backscatter (sigma-0) and backscatter polarization ratio (PR) are used in the maximum likelihood estimation of the ice-state. This method is used to infer the daily ice-surface conditions for 25 selected study points located on the Ronne, Ross, Larsen, Fimbul, Amery, and Shackleton Ice-shelves. The temporal and spatial variations of the radar response are also observed for various neighborhood sizes surrounding each given …


Assessing The Quality Of Seawinds Rain Measurements, David G. Long, David W. Draper Jul 2004

Assessing The Quality Of Seawinds Rain Measurements, David G. Long, David W. Draper

Faculty Publications

While SeaWinds was designed to measure ocean winds, it can also measure rain over the ocean. SeaWinds on QuikSCAT active measurements of integrated columnar rain rate obtained via simultaneous wind/rain retrieval are evaluated via Monte Carlo simulation and the Cramer-Rao lower bound on estimate accuracy. Although sufficiently accurate in many conditions, the simultaneous wind/rain retrieval method used with SeaWinds on QuikSCAT data is ill-conditioned for certain wind directions and measurement geometries, sometimes yielding spurious rain rates in zero-rain conditions. To assess the validity of SeaWinds-derived rain rates, a simple empirically based rain thresholding scheme is presented, derived from simulated data. …


Automatic Detection And Validity Of The Sea-Ice Edge: An Application Of Enhanced-Resolution Quikscat/Seawinds Data, David G. Long, Jorg Haarpaintner, Rasmus T. Tonboe, Michael L. Van Woert Jul 2004

Automatic Detection And Validity Of The Sea-Ice Edge: An Application Of Enhanced-Resolution Quikscat/Seawinds Data, David G. Long, Jorg Haarpaintner, Rasmus T. Tonboe, Michael L. Van Woert

Faculty Publications

Sea-ice edge detection is an essential task at the different national ice services to secure navigation in ice-covered seas. Comparison between the Remund and Long ice mask image from enhanced-resolution QuikScat/SeaWinds (QS) products and the analyzed ice edge from high-resolution RADARSAT synthetic aperture radar has shown that the automatically determined QS ice mask underestimates the Arctic ice extent. QS data was statistically analyzed by colocating the data with ice charts around Greenland and with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Team's Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) ice concentration algorithm over the whole Arctic region. All variables, i.e., the backscatter in vertical …


Simultaneous Wind And Rain Retrieval Using Seawinds Data, David G. Long, David W. Draper Jul 2004

Simultaneous Wind And Rain Retrieval Using Seawinds Data, David G. Long, David W. Draper

Faculty Publications

The SeaWinds scatterometers onboard the QuikSCAT and the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite 2 measure ocean winds on a global scale via the relationship between the normalized radar backscattering cross section of the ocean and the vector wind. The current wind retrieval method ignores scattering and attenuation of ocean rain, which alter backscatter measurements and corrupt retrieved winds. Using a simple rain backscatter and attenuation model, two methods of improving wind estimation in the presence of rain are evaluated. First, if no suitable prior knowledge of the rain rate is available, a maximum-likelihood estimation technique is used to simultaneously retrieve the …


Evaluating The Effect Of Rain On Seawinds Scatterometer Measurements, David G. Long, David Draper Feb 2004

Evaluating The Effect Of Rain On Seawinds Scatterometer Measurements, David G. Long, David Draper

Faculty Publications

A simple wind/rain backscatter model is used with co-located precipitation radar (PR) data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite to evaluate the effect of rain on SeaWinds on QuikSCAT σ° observations. The model incorporates wind-induced surface scattering, the surface rain perturbation, and atmospheric rain attenuation and scattering. The co-located PR measurements afford direct computation of SeaWinds-scale averaged rain rate and atmospheric rain attenuation and scattering. An estimate of the wind-induced surface backscatter is computed via numerical weather prediction (NWP) winds. By synergistically combining the SeaWinds, NWP, and PR data, estimates of surface rain perturbation and combined surface/atmospheric scattering …