L-band microwave backscatter and brightness temperature of sea surfaces acquired using the Passive/Active L-band Sensor during the High Ocean Wind campaign are reported in terms of their dependence on ocean surface wind speed and direction. We find that the L-band VV, HH, and HV radar backscatter data increase by 6-7 dB from 5 to 25 m/s wind speed at a 45° incidence angle. The data suggest the validity of Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) HH model function between 5 and 15 m/s wind speeds, but show that the extrapolation of PALSAR model at above 20 m/s wind speeds overpredictsA0anda1coefficients. There is wind direction dependence in the radar backscatter with about 4 dB differences between upwind and crosswind observations at 24 m/s wind speed for VV and HH. The passive brightness temperatures show about a 5-K change forTVand a 7-K change forTHfor a wind speed increasing from 5 to 25 m/s. Circle flight data suggest a wind direction response of about 1-2 K inTVandTHat 14 and 24 m/s wind speeds. The L-band microwave data show excellent linear correlation with the surface wind speed with a correlation better than 0.95. The results support the use of L-band radar data for estimating the wind-driven excess brightness temperature of sea surfaces. The data also support the applications of L-band microwave signals for high-resolution (kilometer scale) observation of ocean surface winds under high wind conditions (10-28 m/s).

L-band radiometer brightness temperature measurements of a saltwater pond were made as a function of salinity and temperature. A precision L-band radiometer with stability better than 0.1 K per day was used for these measurements. The L-band measurements are in good agreement with three dielectric constant models over a temperature range from 8/spl deg/C to 32/spl deg/C and a salinity range from 25-40 psu. Based on this experiment, these dielectric models will provide an excellent basis for the algorithm development and design of the future National Aeronautics and Space Administration Aquarius satellite mission.

Ocean salinity measurements using the Passive Active L/S-band instrument flying on the NCAR C-130 aircraft were made in July 2002 near Monterey, CA. When the radiometer data were corrected for the SST using the Klein and Swift salinity model and surface roughness effects using the L-band scatterometer, the retrieved salinity measurements had an RMS difference of 0.2-0.3 psu when compared with the R/V Point Sur ship measured salinity data.

L and S-band radiometer brightness temperature measurements from a salt-water pond were made of as a function of salinity and temperature. The L-band measurements are in excellent agreement with the Klein and Swift salinity model, and will provide accurate predictions for the L-band emission from the ocean for future ocean salinity satellite missions.

Data were acquired by the Passive and Active L- and S-band airborne sensor (PALS) during the 1999 Southern Great Plains (SGP99) experiment in Oklahoma to study remote sensing of soil moisture in vegetated terrain using low-frequency microwave radiometer and radar measurements. The PALS instrument measures radiometric brightness temperature and radar backscatter at L- and S-band frequencies with multiple polarizations and approximately equal spatial resolutions. The data acquired during SGP99 provide information on the sensitivities of multichannel low-frequency passive and active measurements to soil moisture for vegetation conditions including bare, pasture, and crop surface cover with field-averaged vegetation water contents mainly in the 0-2.5 kg m/sup -2/ range. Precipitation occurring during the experiment provided an opportunity to observe wetting and drying surface conditions. Good correlations with soil moisture were observed in the radiometric channels. The 1.41-GHz horizontal-polarization channel showed the greatest sensitivity to soil moisture over the range of vegetation observed. For the fields sampled, a radiometric soil moisture retrieval accuracy of 2.3% volumetric was obtained. The radar channels showed significant correlation with soil moisture for some individual fields, with greatest sensitivity at 1.26-GHz vertical copolarized channel. However, variability in vegetation cover degraded the radar correlations for the combined field data. Images generated from data collected on a sequence of flight lines over the watershed region showed similar patterns of soil moisture change in the radiometer and radar responses. This indicates that under vegetated conditions for which soil moisture estimates may not be feasible using current radar algorithms, the radar measurements nevertheless show a response to soil moisture change, and they can provide useful information on the spatial and temporal variability of soil moisture. An illustration of the change detection approach is given.

A spaceborne radar for atmospheric observation must be able to detect atmospheric backscatter in the presence of clutter from the surface, due to antenna sidelobes. Such clutter can come from the same pulse as that observing the atmosphere if the radar antenna is pointed off-nadir. However pulses both prior and subsequent to the pulse observing the atmosphere can also contribute to clutter, and surface clutter can be a problem even for nadir-looking radars. Here, the problem is analyzed by deriving a method for computing clutter which includes effects of all contributing transmit pulses, Doppler shifting, finite receiver bandwidth, and curved Earth's surface. The results are applied to analysis of existing radars and design of future radar systems.

A passive/active WS-band (PALS) microwave aircraft instrument to measure ocean salinity and soil moisture has been built and tested. Because the L-band brightness temperatures associated with salinity changes are expected to be small, it was necessary to build a very sensitive and stable system. This new instrument has dual-frequency, dual polarization radiometer and radar sensors. The antenna is a high beam efficiency conical horn. The PALS instrument was installed on the NCAR C-130 aircraft and soil moisture measurements were made in support of the Southern Great Plains 1999 experiment in Oklahoma from July 8-14, 1999. Data taken before and after a rainstorm showed significant changes in the brightness temperatures, polarization ratios and radar backscatter, as a function of soil moisture. Salinity measurement missions were flown on July 17-19, 1999, southeast of Norfolk, VA, over the Gulf Stream. The measurements indicated a clear and repeatable salinity signal during these three days, which was in good agreement with the Cape Hatteras ship salinity data. Data were also taken in the open ocean and a small decrease of 0.2 K was measured in the brightness temperature, which corresponded to the salinity increase of 0.4 psu measured by the M/V Oleander vessel.

A set of geophysical error sources for the microwave remote sensing of ocean surface salinity have been examined. The error sources include the sea surface temperature, sea surface roughness, atmospheric gases, ionospheric Faraday rotation, and solar and Galactic emission sources. It is shown that the brightness temperature effects of a few kelvin can be expected for most of these error sources. The key correction requirements for accurate salinity measurements are the knowledge accuracy of 0.5/spl deg/C for the sea surface temperature (SST), 10 mbar for the surface air pressure, 2/spl deg/C for the surface air temperature, 0.20 accuracy for the Faraday rotation, and surface roughness equivalent to 0.3 m s/sup -1/ for the surface wind speed. We suggest the use of several data products for corrections, including the AMSR-type instruments for SST and liquid cloud water, the AMSU-type product for air temperature, the scatterometer products or numerical weather analysis for the air pressure, coincidental radar observations with 0.2 dB precision for surface roughness, and on-board polarimetric radiometer channel for Faraday rotation. The most significant sky radiation is from the Sun. A careful design of the antenna is necessary to minimize the leakage of solar radiation or reflection into the antenna sidelobes. The narrow-band radiation from Galactic hydrogen clouds with a bandwidth of less than 1 MHz is also significant, but can be corrected with a radio sky survey or minimized with a notched (band-rejection) filter centered at 1.421 GHz. The other planetary and Galactic radio sources can also be flagged with a small data loss. We have performed a sampling analysis for a polar-orbiting satellite with 900 km swath width to determine the number of satellite observations over a given surface grid cell during an extended period. Under the assumption that the observations from different satellite passes are independent, it is suggested that an accuracy of 0.1 psu (practical salinity unit) is achievable for global monthly 10 latitude by 10 longitude gridded products.

Synthetic aperture radar interferometry is an imaging technique for measuring the topography of a surface, its changes over time, and other changes in the detailed characteristic of the surface. By exploiting the phase of the coherent radar signal, interferometry has transformed radar remote sensing from a largely interpretive science to a quantitative tool, with applications in cartography, geodesy, land cover characterization, and natural hazards. This paper reviews the techniques of interferometry, systems and limitations, and applications in a rapidly growing area of science and engineering.

Ku-band backscatter responses to frontal sea surface temperature (SST) changes are studied and applications of a high-resolution scatterometer to remote sensing of an SST front are suggested. Ocean backscatter signatures were measured with an airborne Ku-band scatterometer across the Gulf Stream SST front during the Surface Wave Dynamics Experiment. Oceanic and atmospheric parameters were measured by buoys, by the Scanning Radar Altimeter, and by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer, and the surface current fields analyzed by the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center were obtained. Vertical polarization backscatter difference across the SST front with an SST difference of 9/spl deg/C is more than 5 dB in several flight lines. Large horizontal polarization backscatter changes are also observed across the SST front with an SST difference approximately one-half of that in the vertical polarization backscatter case. Corresponding wind speed differences cannot account for the large backscatter changes in view of Seasat-A Satellite Scatterometer (SASS) geophysical model functions depending only on neutral wind velocity. For both polarizations, upwind backscatter on the cold side is smaller than or close to crosswind backscatter on the warm side for incidence angles larger than 20/spl deg/ and smaller than 60/spl deg/. This suggests that the SST front can be detected with backscatter measured by a spaceborne radar at a fixed azimuth angle even if wind directions are different over the cold and warm sides.

The Ku-band dual-polarized backscatter signatures of ocean surfaces are described in this paper with the airborne scatterometer measurements collected in the Hurricane Ocean Wind Experiment in September 1997. The data collected from flights over Hurricane Erika provide a direct evidence that there are wind direction signals in the vertically and horizontally polarized Ku-band backscatter of ocean surfaces under the influence of hurricane force winds. At 46/spl deg/ incidence angle, the vertically polarized backscatter acquired at the upwind direction increases by about 1 dB as the wind speed increases from 22 m/spl middot/s/sup -1/ to 35 m/spl middot/s/sup -1/, while the horizontally polarized backscatter appears to be twice as sensitive with a change of about 2 dB. At 35 m/spl middot/s/sup -1/ wind speeds, the difference between upwind and crosswind observations of vertically polarized backscatter is about 1.5 dB, smaller than the 2 dB difference for the horizontally polarized backscatter. This demonstrates that the horizontal polarization has a greater sensitivity to wind speed and direction than the vertical polarization in the high wind regime. The data also suggest that the upwind and downwind asymmetry of Ku-band backscatter decreases with increasing wind speed and can fall below 0 dB at small incidence angles (<35/spl deg/) for the vertical polarization. A combined interaction of the geometric optics scattering and the short wave modulation by long waves is proposed to interpret this phenomenon and appears to agree with the dependence of the signature on incidence, wind speed, and polarization. The aircraft flight data support the feasibility of dual-polarized Ku-band radar for hurricane ocean wind measurements, although the data do suggest a reduced wind speed and direction sensitivity in the high wind regime. Also, the differing polarization backscatter signatures-suggest the relative contributions of various surface scattering mechanisms. An improved Ku-band GMF is described.

The sensitivities of wind direction signals in passive microwave brightness temperatures of sea surfaces to wind speed, incidence angle, polarization, and frequency are presented in this paper. The experimental data were acquired from a series of aircraft flights from 1993 through 1996 by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) using JPL 19 and 37 GHz polarimetric radiometers (WINDRAD). Fourier analysis of the data versus mind direction was carried out and the coefficients of Fourier series are illustrated against the wind speed at 45/spl deg/, 55/spl deg/, and 65/spl deg/ incidence angles. There is a good agreement between the JPL aircraft flight data and Wentz's Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) geophysical model function for the vertically polarized brightness temperatures, but Wentz's SSM/I wind direction model for horizontal polarization shows a significantly stronger upwind and downwind asymmetry than the aircraft flight data. Comparison of the dual-frequency WINDRAD data show's that the wind direction signals are similar at 19 and 37 GHz, although the 37 GHz data have slightly stronger signals than the 19 GHz data. In general, the azimuthal variations of brightness temperatures increase with increasing wind speed from low to moderate winds, then level off and decrease at high minds. The only exception is the U measurements at 65/spl deg/ incidence angle, which have a stronger than expected signal at low winds. An exponential function was proposed to model the sensitivities of wind direction signals to wind speeds. The coefficients of the empirical model are provided in this paper and are useful for the simulation of ocean brightness temperatures and for the development of geophysical retrieval algorithms.

The NASA/JPL Airborne Rain MApping Radar (ARMAR) was operated on the NASA DC-8 aircraft during TOGA COARE in early 1993. On 12 flights ARMAR observed stratiform precipitation associated with mesoscale convective systems. The statistics of 16 melting layer parameters, including maximum reflectivity, cooling rate, Doppler velocity, LDR, and the HH-VV correlation coefficient are presented and discussed.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory NUSCAT K/sub u/-band scatterometer successfully acquired ocean backscatter data over a wide variety of oceanic and atmospheric conditions during the Surface Wave Dynamics Experiment (SWADE). Ten flights resulted in 30 h of data collection were conducted on the NASA Ames C130 aircraft. The SWADE experimental area was deployed with several buoys providing appropriate in situ measurements to correlate with the radar backscatter for incidence angles from 10 to 60/spl deg/ at both horizontal and vertical polarizations. The NUSCAT-SWADE backscatter data base was utilized in conjunction with buoy measurements to investigate ocean backscatter signatures over the range of conditions encountered during SWADE. To account for modulations and fluctuations in incidence angles, a backscatter analysis independent of a priori geophysical model functions was developed, tested, and implemented. Results for backscatter azimuth modulations in terms of upwind, downwind, and crosswind radar returns are compared to airborne RADSCAT results and to SASS-I and II geophysical model functions versus neutral wind speed (U/sub N/). NUSCAT-SWADE results are closest overall to SASS-II values, fit best with SASS-I at 10/spl deg/ incidence angle, and are significantly higher than RADSCAT. Effects of friction velocity (u*), wave age (c/sub o//u*), and significant wave height (H/sub 1/3/) on ocean backscatter are studied. The backscatter shows a good positive sensitivity to u*, an inverse dependence on c/sub o//u*, and no systematic trend with H/sub 1/3/ excluding cases of large swells. Coefficients of empirical relations between backscatter and neutral wind speed, friction velocity, and wave age are derived for 10-40/spl deg/ incidence angles at both horizontal and vertical polarizations. Covariance studies of backscatter with the derived relations to winds show an overall deviation factor in the order of 1 dB for ocean signatures including uncertainties in surface conditions.

Dual-frequency (19 and 37 GHz), multi-incidence measurements of the Stokes parameters of sea surface microwave emission are reported. A series of aircraft polarimetric radiometer flights were carried out over the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) moored buoys deployed off the northern California coast in July and August 1994. Measured radiometric temperatures showed a few Kelvin azimuth modulations in all Stokes parameters with respect to the wind direction. Wind directional signals observed in the 37-GHz channel were similar to those in the 19-GHz channel. This indicates that the wind direction signals in sea surface brightness temperatures have a weak frequency dependence in the range of 19-37 GHz. Harmonic coefficients of the wind direction signals were derived from experimental data versus incidence angle. It was found that the first harmonic coefficients, which are caused by the up and downwind asymmetric surface features, had a small increasing trend with the incidence angle. In contrast, the second harmonic coefficients, caused by the up and crosswind asymmetry, showed significant variations in T/sub v/ and U data, with a sign change when the incidence angle increased from 45/spl deg/ to 65/spl deg/. Besides the first three Stokes parameters, the fourth Stokes parameter, V, which had never been measured before for sea surfaces, was measured using our 19-GHz channel. The Stokes parameter V. Has an odd symmetry just like that of the third Stokes parameter U, and increases with increasing incidence angles. In summary, sea surface features created by surface winds are anisotropic in azimuth direction and modulate all Stokes parameters of sea surface microwave brightness temperatures by as large as a few Kelvin in the range of incidence angles from 45/spl deg/ to 65/spl deg/ applicable to spaceborne observations.

Ocean radar backscatter in the presence of large waves is investigated using data acquired with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory NUSCAT radar at Ku band for horizontal and vertical polarizations and the University of Massachusetts C-SCAT radar at C band for vertical polarization during the Surface Wave Dynamics Experiment. Off-nadir backscatter data of ocean surfaces were obtained in the presence of large waves with significant wave height up to 5.6 m. In moderate-wind cases, effects of large waves are not detectable within the measurement uncertainty and no noticeable correlation between backscatter coefficients and wave height is found. Under high-wave light-wind conditions, backscatter is enhanced significantly at large incidence angles,with a weaker effect at small incidence angles. Backscatter coefficients in the wind speed range under consideration are compared with SASS-II (Ku band), CMOD3-H1 (C band), and Plant's model results which confirm the experimental observations. Variations of the friction velocity, which can give rise to the observed backscatter behaviors in the presence of large waves, are presented.>

Presents the first experimental evidence that the polarimetric brightness temperatures of sea surfaces are sensitive to ocean wind direction in the incidence angle range of 30 to 50/spl deg/. The experimental data were collected by a K-band (19.35 GHz) polarimetric wind radiometer (WINDRAD) mounted on the NASA DC-8 aircraft. A set of aircraft radiometer flights was successfully completed in November 1993. The authors performed circle flights over National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) moored buoys deployed off the northern California coast, which provided ocean wind measurements. The results indicate that passive polarimetric radiometry has a strong potential for global ocean wind speed and direction measurements from space.>

Attempting to understand and predict weather on a local and global basis has challenged both the scientific and engineering communities. One key parameter in understanding the weather is the ocean surface wind vector because of its role in the energy exchange at the air-sea surface. scatterometers, radars that measure the reflectivity of a target offer a tool with which to remotely monitor these winds from tower-, aircraft-, and satellite-based platforms. This paper introduces three current airborne scatterometer systems, and presents data collected by these instruments under low-, moderate-, and high-wind conditions. The paper focuses on airborne scatterometers because of their ability to resolve submesoscale variations in wind fields. Discrepancies between existing theory and the observations are noted and the concerns in measuring low-wind speeds discussed. Finally, the application of using this technology for estimating the surface-wind vector during a hurricane is demonstrated.>

Pulse compression allows a substantial reduction in the peak transmitted power of a radar and is attractive for spaceborne remote sensing applications. In the case of a downward looking rain measuring radar, however, the range sidelobes associated with surface return can mask return from rain and must be kept to a minimum. The authors describe the pulse compression system for the NASA/JPL Airborne Rain Mapping Radar. This system uses time-domain weighting of the transmitted pulse and is able to achieve a range sidelobe level of -55 dB or better in flight tests. This is significantly lower than other values reported in the open literature.>