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Full-Text Articles in Engineering
A C-Band Scatterometer Simultaneous Wind/Rain Retrieval Method, David G. Long, Congling Nie
A C-Band Scatterometer Simultaneous Wind/Rain Retrieval Method, David G. Long, Congling Nie
Faculty Publications
Using collocated ERS scatterometer (ESCAT), Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Precipitation Radar (PR), and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) data, the effects of rain on ESCAT wind-only retrieval are evaluated. Additional scattering from rain causes estimated wind speeds to appear higher than expected. Selected directions of the rain-corrupted wind vectors are biased toward along-track directions under conditions of heavy rain, which is regardless of the true wind direction. Rain becomes more significant for data acquired at a high incidence angle. To compensate for rain-induced backscatter, a simultaneous wind/rain retrieval (SWRR) method, which simultaneously retrieves wind velocity and surface …
Evaluation Of A Compound Probability Model With Tower-Mounted Scatterometer Data, David G. Long, Benjamin E. Barrowes
Evaluation Of A Compound Probability Model With Tower-Mounted Scatterometer Data, David G. Long, Benjamin E. Barrowes
Faculty Publications
Six months of data from the YSCAT94 experiment conducted at the CCIW WAVES research platform on Lake Ontario, Canada, are analyzed to evaluate a compound probability model. YSCAT was an ultrawideband small footprint (ap 1 m) microwave scatterometer that operated at frequencies of 2-18 GHz, incidence angles from 0° to 60°, both h-pol and v-pol, and which tracked the wind using simultaneous weather measurements. The probability distribution function of the measured instantaneous backscattered amplitude (p(a)) is compared to theoretical distributions developed from-the composite model and a simple wave spectrum. Model parameters of the resulting Rayleigh/generalized lognormal distribution probability density function …
Improved Resolution Backscatter Measurements With The Seawinds Pencil-Beam Scatterometer, David G. Long, Michael W. Spencer, Chialin T. Wu
Improved Resolution Backscatter Measurements With The Seawinds Pencil-Beam Scatterometer, David G. Long, Michael W. Spencer, Chialin T. Wu
Faculty Publications
The SeaWinds scatterometer was launched on the NASA QuikSCAT spacecraft in June 1999 and is planned for the Japanese ADEOS-II mission in 2000. In addition to generating a global Ku-band backscatter data set useful for a variety of climate studies, these flights will provide ocean-surface wind estimates for use in operational weather forecasting. SeaWinds employs a compact "pencil-beam" design rather than the "fan-beam" approach previously used with SASS on Seasat, NSCAT on ADEOS-I, and the AMI scatterometer on ERS-1, 2. As originally envisioned and reported, the resolution of the SeaWinds backscatter measurements were to be antenna-beamwidth limited. In order to …
Accuracy Of Scatterometer-Derived Winds Using The Cramer-Rao Bound, David G. Long, Travis E. Oliphant
Accuracy Of Scatterometer-Derived Winds Using The Cramer-Rao Bound, David G. Long, Travis E. Oliphant
Faculty Publications
A wind scatterometer makes measurements of the normalized radar-backscatter coefficient O of the ocean surface. To retrieve the wind, a geophysical model function (GMF), which relates O to the near-surface wind, is used. The wind vector can be estimated using maximum-likelihood techniques from several O measurements made at different azimuth angles. The probability density of the measured O is assumed to be Gaussian with a variance that depends on the true O and therefore, depends on the wind through the GMF. With this model for wind estimation, the Cramer-Rao (C-R) bound is derived for wind estimation, and its implications for …
Postlaunch Sensor Verification And Calibration Of The Nasa Scatterometer, David G. Long, Wu-Yang Tsai, James E. Graf, Carroll Winn, James N. Huddleston, R. Scott Dunbar, Michael H. Freilich, Frank J. Wentz, W. Linwood Jones
Postlaunch Sensor Verification And Calibration Of The Nasa Scatterometer, David G. Long, Wu-Yang Tsai, James E. Graf, Carroll Winn, James N. Huddleston, R. Scott Dunbar, Michael H. Freilich, Frank J. Wentz, W. Linwood Jones
Faculty Publications
Scatterometer instruments are active microwave sensors that transmit a series of microwave pulses and measure the returned echo power to determine the normalized radar backscattering cross section (sigma-0) of the ocean surface from which the speed and direction of near-surface ocean winds are derived. The NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) was launched on board the ADEOS spacecraft in August 1996 and returned ten months of high-quality data before the failure of the ADEOS spacecraft terminated the data stream in June 1997. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the NSCAT instrument and sigma-0 computation and to describe the …
Tradeoffs In The Design Of A Spaceborne Scanning Pencil Beam Scatterometer: Application To Seawinds, David G. Long, Chialin T. Wu, Michael W. Spencer
Tradeoffs In The Design Of A Spaceborne Scanning Pencil Beam Scatterometer: Application To Seawinds, David G. Long, Chialin T. Wu, Michael W. Spencer
Faculty Publications
SeaWinds is a spaceborne wind scatterometer to be flown on the second Japanese Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS-II) in 1999. An important international element of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS), SeaWinds is an advanced follow-on to the NASA scatterometer (NSCAT) on the first ADEOS platform. Unlike previous operational spaceborne scatterometer systems. SeaWinds employs a scanning "pencil-beam" antenna rather than a "fan-beam" antenna, making the instrument more compact and yielding greater ocean coverage. The goals of this paper are twofold. First, the overall SeaWinds functional design and backscatter measurement approach are described, and the relative advantages of the pencil-beam technique are …
Radar Backscatter Measurement Accuracy For A Spaceborne Pencil-Beam Wind Scatterometer With Transmit Modulation, David G. Long, Michael W. Spencer
Radar Backscatter Measurement Accuracy For A Spaceborne Pencil-Beam Wind Scatterometer With Transmit Modulation, David G. Long, Michael W. Spencer
Faculty Publications
Scatterometers are remote sensing radars designed to measure near-surface winds over the ocean. The difficulties of accommodating traditional fan-beam scatterometers on spacecraft has lead to the development of a scanning pencil-beam instrument known as SeaWinds. SeaWinds will be part of the Japanese Advanced Earth Observing Satellite II (ADEOS-II) to be launched in 1999. To analyze the performance of the SeaWinds design, a new expression for the measurement accuracy of a pencil-beam system is required. In this paper the authors derive a general expression for the backscatter measurement accuracy for a pencil-beam scatterometer which includes the effects of transmit signal modulation …
Dependence Of The Normalized Radar Cross Section Of Water Waves On Bragg Wavelength-Wind Speed Sensitivity, David G. Long, R. Scott Collyer, David V. Arnold
Dependence Of The Normalized Radar Cross Section Of Water Waves On Bragg Wavelength-Wind Speed Sensitivity, David G. Long, R. Scott Collyer, David V. Arnold
Faculty Publications
Measurements of the normalized radar cross section (O) made by the YSCAT ultrawideband scatterometer during an extended deployment on the Canada Centre for Inland Waters (CCIW) Research Tower located at Lake Ontario are analyzed and compared with anemometer wind measurements to study the sensitivity of O to the wind speed as a function of the Bragg wavelength. This paper concentrates on upwind and downwind azimuth angles in the wind speed range of 4.5-12 m/s. While YSCAT collected measurements of O at a variety of frequencies and incidence angles, this paper focuses on frequencies of 2.0, 3.05, 5.30, 10.02, and 14.0 …
Calibration Of Spaceborne Scatterometers Using Tropical Rain Forests, David G. Long, Gary B. Skouson
Calibration Of Spaceborne Scatterometers Using Tropical Rain Forests, David G. Long, Gary B. Skouson
Faculty Publications
Wind scatterometers are radar systems designed specifically to measure the normalized radar backscatter coefficient (O) of the ocean's surface in order to determine the near-surface wind vector. Postlaunch calibration of a wind scatterometer can be performed with an extended-area natural target such as the Amazon tropical rain forest. Rain forests exhibit a remarkably high degree of homogeneity in their radar response over a very large area though some spatial and temporal variability exist. The authors present a simple technique for calibrating scatterometer data using tropical rain forests, Using a polynomial model for the rolloff of O with incidence angle, the …
Identifiability In Wind Estimation From Scatterometer Measurements, David G. Long, Jerry M. Mendel
Identifiability In Wind Estimation From Scatterometer Measurements, David G. Long, Jerry M. Mendel
Faculty Publications
The problem of identifiability of a wind vector that is estimated from wind scatterometer measurements of the radar backscatter of the ocean's surface is addressed. The traditional wind estimation approach produces multiple estimates of the wind direction. A second processing step, known as dealiasing or ambiguity removal, is used to select a single wind estimate from these multiple solutions. Dealiasing is typically based on various ad hoc considerations. The traditional wind estimation approach results in multiple solutions associated with local minima in an objective function formed from the noisy backscatter measurements. The authors discuss the question of the uniqueness of …