Simultaneous measurements by Advanced SAR and Radar altimeter on potential improvement of ocean wave model assimilation

Li XM, Lehner S, Bruns T (2014)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2014

Journal

IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Book Volume: 52

Pages Range: 2508-2518

Article Number: 6522453

Journal Issue: 5

DOI: 10.1109/TGRS.2013.2262137

Abstract

Simultaneous measurements of significant wave height (SWH) obtained from two independent active microwave sensors of Radar Altimeter 2 (RA-2) and Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) onboard the ENVIronmental SATellite (ENVISAT) are used for a global verification of ocean wave models (WAMs). In the present study, SWH is retrieved from ASAR wave mode data using the empirical algorithm called C-band WAVE algorithm for ENVISAT, which is capable of representing total SWH irrespective of the cutoff of SAR. Comparisons of two radar measurements with the reanalyses ERA-Interim model (with assimilation of RA-2 measurements) and the German operational WAM (Deutscher Wetterdienst Global Sea wave Model, without assimilation before 2008) show that both WAMs agree well with ASAR and RA-2 measurements. However, the discrepancies of agreement indicate to which extent that the assimilation of RA-2 measurements can improve the performance of WAMs. Moreover, differences in the comparisons of ASAR and RA-2 measurements with the same WAM of ERA-Interim reveal that, although assimilation of RA-2 significantly improves the accuracy of model on grids near the RA-2 tracks, the improvement decreases along with the increase of distance between model grids and RA-2 tracks. © 2013 IEEE.

Involved external institutions

Deutscher Wetterdienst / German Meteorological Service DE Germany (DE) Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR) / German Aerospace Center DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Li, X.M., Lehner, S., & Bruns, T. (2014). Simultaneous measurements by Advanced SAR and Radar altimeter on potential improvement of ocean wave model assimilation. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 52(5), 2508-2518. https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2013.2262137

MLA:

Li, Xiao Ming, Susanne Lehner, and Thomas Bruns. "Simultaneous measurements by Advanced SAR and Radar altimeter on potential improvement of ocean wave model assimilation." IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 52.5 (2014): 2508-2518.

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