Optimizing ?0 information from the Jason-2 altimeter
Optimizing ?0 information from the Jason-2 altimeter
A radar altimeter's normalized backscatter, ?0, is used in many oceanographic applications, to infer values of wind speed, wind stress, rain rate and the presence of biogenic slicks. The waveform retracker used to estimate the key geophysical variables for the altimeters on the Jason-1 and Jason-2 satellites shows increased small-scale variability since the problem is ill-conditioned. A simple empirical adjustment to ?0 improves the separability between various parameters and also improves the along-track profiles of ?0. This leads to i) more realistic wind fields, ii) better discrimination of rain events, and iii) improved comparison between the Jason-1 and Jason-2 altimeters during their tandem mission.
altimeter, retracking, sigma0, Jason-2, data quality, reprocessing
398-402
Quartly, Graham D.
3d1e4e87-f001-4d18-b95f-9bca4db6ff9d
July 2009
Quartly, Graham D.
3d1e4e87-f001-4d18-b95f-9bca4db6ff9d
Quartly, Graham D.
(2009)
Optimizing ?0 information from the Jason-2 altimeter.
IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, 6 (3), .
(doi:10.1109/LGRS.2009.2013973).
Abstract
A radar altimeter's normalized backscatter, ?0, is used in many oceanographic applications, to infer values of wind speed, wind stress, rain rate and the presence of biogenic slicks. The waveform retracker used to estimate the key geophysical variables for the altimeters on the Jason-1 and Jason-2 satellites shows increased small-scale variability since the problem is ill-conditioned. A simple empirical adjustment to ?0 improves the separability between various parameters and also improves the along-track profiles of ?0. This leads to i) more realistic wind fields, ii) better discrimination of rain events, and iii) improved comparison between the Jason-1 and Jason-2 altimeters during their tandem mission.
Text
Quartly_GRSL2009_preprint.pdf
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Submitted date: 31 October 2008
Published date: July 2009
Keywords:
altimeter, retracking, sigma0, Jason-2, data quality, reprocessing
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 64865
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/64865
ISSN: 1545-598X
PURE UUID: ebaab690-fd1b-4c0a-8c49-9ffbf0c31e1b
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Date deposited: 20 Jan 2009
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 12:03
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Author:
Graham D. Quartly
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