Active/Passive Ocean Wind Vector Measurements from GPM Core Observatory

In this paper, we demonstrate the feasibility of remote sensing of ocean vector wind (OVW) from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite. By combining its active normalized radar cross section (σ⁰), and passive microwave brightness temperature (Tbs) measurements, ocean surface wind vectors were retrieved and validated by comparison with collocated ASCAT wind products. The algorithm is described, and the results are presented.

I. Introduction

Satellite derived ocean vector wind is a crucial parameter for weather and climate studies [1] . The GPM Core Observatory (shown in Fig. 1 ) revolves the Earth in a 407-km circular non-sun-synchronous orbit (65° inclination). It was launched by NASA and JAXA in February 2014 [2] , as an upgraded follow-up mission of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM: Nov 1997 – Apr 2015), both primarily for precipitation measurements [3] . Although the GPM□CO was designed to observe global precipitation, other environmental products, including sea surface temperature (SST), columnar water vapor (WV), and columnar cloud liquid water (CLW), have also been available from GPM observatory [4] . This paper demonstrates the potential for providing a scientifically valuable OVW data product that extend our previous research in using TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) observations to retrieve OVW for the multi-decade GPM-TRMM era [5] – [8] .