Remote Sensing (Nov 2021)

High-Resolution Polar Low Winds Obtained from Unsupervised SAR Wind Retrieval

  • Mathias Tollinger,
  • Rune Graversen,
  • Harald Johnsen

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13224655
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 22
p. 4655

Abstract

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High-resolution sea surface observations by spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instruments are sorely neglected resources for meteorological applications in polar regions. Such radar observations provide information about wind speed and direction based on wind-induced roughness of the sea surface. The increasing coverage of SAR observations in polar regions calls for the development of SAR-specific applications that make use of the full information content of this valuable resource. Here we provide examples of the potential of SAR observations to provide details of the complex, mesoscale wind structure during polar low events, and examine the performance of two current wind retrieval methods. Furthermore, we suggest a new approach towards accurate wind vector retrieval of complex wind fields from SAR observations that does not require a priori wind direction input that the most common retrieval methods are dependent on. This approach has the potential to be particularly beneficial for numerical forecasting of weather systems with strong wind gradients, such as polar lows.

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