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Full-Text Articles in Engineering
Assessing The Quality Of Seawinds Rain Measurements, David G. Long, David W. Draper
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. …
Simultaneous Wind And Rain Retrieval Using Seawinds Data, David G. Long, David W. Draper
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 …
Correlation And Covariance Of Satellite Scatterometer Measurements, David G. Long, Peter K. Yoho
Correlation And Covariance Of Satellite Scatterometer Measurements, David G. Long, Peter K. Yoho
Faculty Publications
Capable scatterometer designs have been developed that seek improved resolution through the use of higher pulse sampling rates. The high sampling rates bring the traditional scatterometry assumption of measurement independence into question. This paper uses fundamental scattering theory to derive general expressions for correlation and covariance between scatterometer measurements and provides practical analysis using current and future instruments as examples. The paper derives expressions for the measurement variance parameter Kp when measurement correlation due to Rayleigh fading effects is present and relates Kp to the statistics of multiple pulse measurements. A function of the transmit signal modulation and receive processing, …