Text Version


since 09/15/97



Marine Observing Systems Team



Overview

    For daily and long term weather forcasting to global climate studies, knowledge of the energy exchange at air-sea interface is very important. The ocean surface winds are a key parameter influencing the coupling of energy between the ocean and the atmosphere. Thus, global monitoring of the ocean surface winds is of vital importance to the operational and scientific community.

    While instruments on buoys and ships do provide measurments of the surface wind vectors, their coverage is insufficient to provide a global wind field map. On the other hand, satellite based sensors can provide global coverage in a reasonable time period. Additionally, sensors operating at microwave frequencies can measure the surface wind vector during nighttime and cloudy conditions, and therefore, greatly increasing the quantity of surface observations.

    Both active (radar) and passive (radiometer) microwave sensors have been shown capable of determining the ocean surface wind speed, with active microwave instruments being used to derive the wind direction. Recently, radiometer systems have been shown capable of determining the wind direction using polarimetric and multi-look observations. Development and refinement of instrumentation and algorithms for ocean surface wind retrieval is an ongoing process being conducted in both the active and passive areas.

Current/planned satellite-based microwave sensors for operational wind retrieval

Land-based sensors

PAUL CHANG
NOAA/NESDIS/ORA
Email: paul.s.chang@noaa.gov