Retrieval of sea surface wind vector by fully polarimetric microwave radiometer
Yili Zhao1 and Ming-Xia HE1
1
Ocean Remote Sensing Institute, Ocean University of China, 5 Yushan Road,
Qingdao 266003, China. E-mail: ylzhao81@gmail.com
WindSat is the first space-based fully polarimetric radiometer, and it could measure
sea surface wind vector. At present, the retrieval of Windsat environmental products
depends on a completed forward model. In this paper, vertical and horizontal channels
of WindSat were simulated with Wentz’s Radiative Transfer Model. The simulation
results were statistically analyzed by use of a match-up data set of TMI and
QuikSCAT sea surface wind vector, sea surface temperature, water vapor and cloud
liquid water and WindSat brightness temperature. On the basis of this, a parameter
was established to modify the Wentz’s model to apply to WindSat. A data set from this
modified model was used to develop a multiple linear regression algorithm for
retrieval of wind speed. Moreover, another match-up data set of WindSat and
QuikSCAT was applied to fit the harmonic coefficients in the relationship between the
third and fourth Stokes parameters and wind vector. A set of ambiguous wind
directions were got by Maximum-Likelihood, and the ambiguities were removed by
median filter technique.