Remote sensing of total integrated water vapor, wind speed, and cloud liquid water over the ocean using the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I)

Abstract

A modified D-matrix retrieval method is the basis of the refined total integrated water vapor (TIWV), total integrated cloud liquid water (CLW), and surface wind speed (WS) retrieval methods that are developed. The 85 GHZ polarization difference is used to restrict the application of the geophysical retrieval algorithms which are developed to handle specific atmospheric absorptive situations. An improved semi-empirical sea surface emissivity model is integrated into this refined D-matrix procedure that is being developed for the Advanced Microwave Sounding Radiometer (AMSR). The purpose of this work is to test the refined geophysical parameter retrieval methods using data from the Special Sensor Microwave / Imager (SSM/I). When comparing the statistical performance of the TIWV, WS, and CLW retrieval methods presented to the statistical performance of published retrieval methods for each geophysical parameter, the retrieval methods developed for this study perform only slightly better. However, it is demonstrated that the new retrieval methods are more physically valid than the comparison retrieval methods. The utilization of the polarization difference of the 85 GHZ channels to restrict the application of specifically-derived retrieval algorithms proves to be a valuable and reliable geophysical parameter retrieval tool.