Since January 2012,the National Satellite Ocean Application Service has released operational wind products from the HY-2A scatterometer(HY2-SCAT),using the maximum-likelihood estimation(MLE) method with a median filter. However,the quality of the winds retrieved from HY2-SCAT depends on the sub-satellite cross-track location,and poor azimuth separation in the nadir region causes particularly low-quality wind products in this region. However,an improved scheme,i.e.,a multiple solution scheme(MSS) with a two-dimensional variational analysis method(2DVAR),has been proposed by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute to overcome such problems. The present study used the MSS in combination with a 2DVAR technique to retrieve wind data from HY2-SCAT observations. The parameter of the empirical probability function,used to indicate the probability of each ambiguous solution being the "true" wind,was estimated based on HY2-SCAT data,and the 2DVAR method used to remove ambiguity in the wind direction. A comparison between MSS and ECMWF winds showed larger deviations at both low wind speeds(below 4 m/s) and high wind speeds(above 17 m/s),whereas the wind direction exhibited lower bias and good stability,even at high wind speeds greater than 24 m/s. The two HY2-SCAT wind data sets,retrieved by the standard MLE and the MSS procedures were compared with buoy observations. The RMS error of wind speed and direction were 1.3 m/s and 17.4°,and 1.3 m/s and 24.0° for the MSS and MLE wind data,respectively,indicating that MSS wind data had better agreement with the buoy data. Furthermore,the distributions of wind fields for a case study of typhoon Soulik were compared,which showed that MSS winds were spatially more consistent and meteorologically better balanced than MLE winds.
This paper introduces the background, aim, experimental design, configuration and data processing for an airborne test flight of the HY-2 Microwave scatterometer(HSCAT). The aim was to evaluate HSCAT performance and a developed data processing algorithm for the HSCAT before launch. There were three test flights of the scatterometer, on January 15, 18 and 22, 2010, over the South China Sea near Lingshui, Hainan. The test flights successfully generated simultaneous airborne scatterometer normalized radar cross section(NRCS), ASCAT wind, and ship-borne-measured wind datasets, which were used to analyze HSCAT performance. Azimuthal dependence of the NRCS relative to the wind direction was nearly cos(2w), with NRCS minima at crosswind directions, and maxima near upwind and downwind. The NRCS also showed a small difference between upwind and downwind directions, with upwind crosssections generally larger than those downwind. The dependence of airborne scatterometer NRCS on wind direction and speed showed favorable consistency with the NASA scatterometer geophysical model function(NSCAT GMF), indicating satisfactory HSCAT performance.
