Vertical gradients of neutral winds observed by ICON and estimated by the Horizontal Wind Model during the geomagnetic storm on August 26−28,2021

The Michelson Interferometer for Global High-resolution Thermospheric Imaging(MIGHTI)onboard the Ionospheric Connection Explorer(ICON)satellite offers the opportunity to investigate the altitude profile of thermospheric winds.In this study,we used the red-line measurements of MIGHTI to compare with the results estimated by Horizontal Wind Model 14(HWM14).The data selected included both the geomagnetic quiet period(December 2019 to August 2022)and the geomagnetic storm on August 26-28,2021.During the geomagnetic quiet period,the estimations of neutral winds from HWM14 showed relatively good agreement with the observations from ICON.According to the ICON observations,near the equator,zonal winds reverse from westward to eastward at around 06:00 local time(LT)at higher altitudes,and the stronger westward winds appear at later LTs at lower altitudes.At around 16:00 LT,eastward winds at 300 km reverse to westward,and vertical gradients of zonal winds similar to those at sunrise hours can be observed.In the middle latitudes,zonal winds reverse about 2-4 h earlier.Meridional winds vary more significantly than zonal winds with seasonal and latitudinal variations.According to the ICON observations,in the northern low latitudes,vertical reversals of meridional winds are found at 08:00-13:00 LT from 300 to 160 km and at around 18:00 LT from 300 to 200 km during the June solstice.Similar reversals of meridional winds are found at 04:00-07:00 LT from 300 to 160 km and at 22:00-02:00 LT from 270 to 200 km during the December solstice.In the southern low latitudes,meridional wind reversals occur at 08:00-11:00 LT from 200 to 160 km and at 21:00-02:00 LT from 300 to 200 km during the June solstice.During the December solstice,reversals of the meridional wind appear at 20:00-01:00 LT below 200 km and at 06:00-11:00 LT from 300 to 160 km.In the northern middle latitudes,the northward winds are dominant at 08:00-14:00 LT at 230 km during the June solstice.Northward winds persist until 16:00 LT at 160 and 300 km.During the December solstice,the northward winds are dominant from 06:00 to 21:00 LT.The vertical variations in neutral winds during the geomagnetic storm on August 26-28 were analyzed in detail.Both meridional and zonal winds during the active geomagnetic period observed by ICON show distinguishable vertical shear structures at different stages of the storm.On the dayside,during the main phase,the peak velocities of westward winds extend from a higher altitude to a lower altitude,whereas during the recovery phase,the peak velocities of the westward winds extend from lower altitudes to higher altitudes.The velocities of the southward winds are stronger at lower altitudes during the storm.These vertical structures of horizontal winds during the storm could not be reproduced by the HWM14 wind estimations,and the overall response to the storm of the horizontal winds in the low and middle latitudes is underestimated by HWM14.The ICON observations provide a good dataset for improving the HWM wind estimations in the middle and upper atmosphere,especially the vertical variations.

Thermospheric neutral wind studies over the equatorial region:A review

Thermospheric neutral winds(TNWs)refer to the neutral gases in the thermosphere circulating as tides,which play a crucial role in the dynamics of the thermosphere-ionosphere system(TIS).Global geospace neutral winds,particularly over the magnetic equator,have been a subject of study for several decades.However,despite the known importance of neutral winds,a comprehensive understanding and characterization of the winds is still lacking.Various ground-based and satellite missions have provided valuable information on the contribution of neutral winds to the global atmospheric dynamics.However,efforts in the global monitoring of neutral winds are still lacking,and the drivers behind the behavior of TNWs as well as their influence on the TIS remain incomplete.To address these knowledge gaps in the global circulation of TNWs,it is crucial to develop a deep understanding of the neutral wind characteristics over different regions.The low-latitude equatorial region in particular has been observed to exert complex influences on TNWs because of the unique effects of the Earth’s magnetic field at the dip equator.Studying neutral winds over this region will provide valuable insights into the unique dynamics and processes that occur in this region,thereby enhancing our understanding of their role in the overall dynamics of the TIS.Additionally,through empirical observations,an improved ability to accurately model and predict the behavior of this region can be achieved.This review article addresses challenges in understanding equatorial winds by reviewing historical measurements,current missions,and the interactions of ionospheric and thermospheric phenomena,emphasizing the need for comprehensive measurements to improve global atmospheric dynamics and weather forecasting.

An investigation on the wind profiles and gravity wave dynamics in MLT region based on the meteor radars from the Meridian Project

The meteor radar can detect the zenith angle,azimuth,radial velocity,and altitude of meteor trails so that one can invert the wind profiles in the mesosphere and low thermosphere(MLT)region,based on the Interferometric and Doppler techniques.In this paper,the horizontal wind field,gravity wave(GW)disturbance variance,and GW fluxes are analyzed through the meteor radar observation from 2012−2022,at Mohe(53.5°N,122.4°E)and Zuoling(30.5°N,114.6°E)stations of the(Chinese)Meridian Project.The Lomb−Scargle periodogram method has been utilized to analyze the periodic variations for time series with observational data gaps.The results show that the zonal winds at both stations are eastward dominated,while the meridional winds are southward dominated.The variance of GW disturbances in the zonal and meridional directions increases gradually with height,and there is a strong pattern of annual variation.The zonal momentum flux of GW changes little with height,showing weak annual variation.The meridional GW flux varies gradually from northward to southward with height,and the annual periodicity is stronger.For both stations,the maximum values of zonal and meridional wind occur close to the peak heights of GW flux,with opposite directions.This observational evidence is consistent with the filtering theory.The horizontal wind velocity,GW flux,and disturbance variance of the GW at Mohe are overall smaller than those at Zuoling,indicating weaker activities in the MLT at Mohe.The power spectral density(PSD)calculated by the Lomb−Scargle periodogram shows that there are 12-month period and 6-month period in horizontal wind field,GW disturbance variance and GW flux at both stations,and especially there is also a 4-month cycle in the disturbance variance.The PSD of the 12-month and 6-month cycles exhibits maximum values below 88 km and above 94 km.

Joint Retrieval of PM_(2.5)Concentration and Aerosol Optical Depth over China Using Multi-Task Learning on FY-4A AGRI

Aerosol optical depth(AOD)and fine particulate matter with a diameter of less than or equal to 2.5μm(PM_(2.5))play crucial roles in air quality,human health,and climate change.However,the complex correlation of AOD–PM_(2.5)and the limitations of existing algorithms pose a significant challenge in realizing the accurate joint retrieval of these two parameters at the same location.On this point,a multi-task learning(MTL)model,which enables the joint retrieval of PM_(2.5)concentration and AOD,is proposed and applied on the top-of-the-atmosphere reflectance data gathered by the Fengyun-4A Advanced Geosynchronous Radiation Imager(FY-4A AGRI),and compared to that of two single-task learning models—namely,Random Forest(RF)and Deep Neural Network(DNN).Specifically,MTL achieves a coefficient of determination(R^(2))of 0.88 and a root-mean-square error(RMSE)of 0.10 in AOD retrieval.In comparison to RF,the R^(2)increases by 0.04,the RMSE decreases by 0.02,and the percentage of retrieval results falling within the expected error range(Within-EE)rises by 5.55%.The R^(2)and RMSE of PM_(2.5)retrieval by MTL are 0.84 and 13.76μg m~(-3)respectively.Compared with RF,the R^(2)increases by 0.06,the RMSE decreases by 4.55μg m~(-3),and the Within-EE increases by 7.28%.Additionally,compared to DNN,MTL shows an increase of 0.01 in R^(2)and a decrease of 0.02 in RMSE in AOD retrieval,with a corresponding increase of 2.89%in Within-EE.For PM_(2.5)retrieval,MTL exhibits an increase of 0.05 in R^(2),a decrease of 1.76μg m~(-3)in RMSE,and an increase of 6.83%in Within-EE.The evaluation suggests that MTL is able to provide simultaneously improved AOD and PM_(2.5)retrievals,demonstrating a significant advantage in efficiently capturing the spatial distribution of PM_(2.5)concentration and AOD.

TGNet:Intelligent Identification of Thunderstorm Wind Gusts Using Multimodal Fusion

Thunderstorm wind gusts are small in scale,typically occurring within a range of a few kilometers.It is extremely challenging to monitor and forecast thunderstorm wind gusts using only automatic weather stations.Therefore,it is necessary to establish thunderstorm wind gust identification techniques based on multisource high-resolution observations.This paper introduces a new algorithm,called thunderstorm wind gust identification network(TGNet).It leverages multimodal feature fusion to fuse the temporal and spatial features of thunderstorm wind gust events.The shapelet transform is first used to extract the temporal features of wind speeds from automatic weather stations,which is aimed at distinguishing thunderstorm wind gusts from those caused by synoptic-scale systems or typhoons.Then,the encoder,structured upon the U-shaped network(U-Net)and incorporating recurrent residual convolutional blocks(R2U-Net),is employed to extract the corresponding spatial convective characteristics of satellite,radar,and lightning observations.Finally,by using the multimodal deep fusion module based on multi-head cross-attention,the temporal features of wind speed at each automatic weather station are incorporated into the spatial features to obtain 10-minutely classification of thunderstorm wind gusts.TGNet products have high accuracy,with a critical success index reaching 0.77.Compared with those of U-Net and R2U-Net,the false alarm rate of TGNet products decreases by 31.28%and 24.15%,respectively.The new algorithm provides grid products of thunderstorm wind gusts with a spatial resolution of 0.01°,updated every 10minutes.The results are finer and more accurate,thereby helping to improve the accuracy of operational warnings for thunderstorm wind gusts.

Evaluation of ENVISAT ASAR data for sea surface wind retrieval in Hong Kong coastal waters of China

The C-band wind speed retrieval models, CMOD4, CMOD - IFR2, and CMOD5 were applied to retrieval of sea surface wind speeds from ENVISAT （European environmental satellite） ASAR （advanced synthetic aperture radar） data in the coastal waters near Hong Kong during a period from October 2005 to July 2007. The retrieved wind speeds are evaluated by comparing with buoy measurements and the QuikSCAT （quick scatterometer） wind products. The results show that the CMOD4 model gives the best performance at wind speeds lower than 15 m/s. The correlation coefficients with buoy and QuikSCAT winds are 0.781 and 0.896, respectively. The root mean square errors are the same 1.74 m/s. Namely, the CMOD4 model is the best one for sea surface wind speed retrieval from ASAR data in the coastal waters near Hong Kong.

Astudyofanewretrievalalgorithmformeasurementofoceanicwindvectorsfieldusingsatellitemicrowavescatterometer

The Seasat-A satellite scatterometer(SASS) demonstrated very successfully that scatterometers can makeaccurate synoptic measurements of surface wind vectors field over the ocean. The technology is based on the sensitivityof microwave radar back scatter to the ocean waves in centimeter scale created by the action of the surface wind. More-over, the back scatter is anisotropic, therefore, wind speed and direction can be derived from radar measurements attwo or more different azimuths. Owing to the nonlinear nature of scatter model function and the existence of variousnoise sources in the measurements, the retrieval wind results consist of as many as four wind directions. A new algo-rithm is proposed to recover ocean wind field from the SASS normalized cross-section measurement in this paper. Comparison with those estimated from the SASS surface wind analysed by Peteherych et al . (1984) and other referencesshow agreement largely in the wind direction and more exactly in the wind speed.

Application of Tikhonov regularization method to wind retrieval from scatterometer data Ⅱ: cyclone wind retrieval with consideration of rain

According to the conclusion of the simulation experiments in paper I, the Tikhonov regularization method is applied to cyclone wind retrieval with a rain-effect-considering geophysical model function （called CMF＋Rain）. The CMF＋Rain model which is based on the NASA scatterometer-2 （NSCAT2） GMF is presented to compensate for the effects of rain on cyclone wind retrieval. With the multiple solution scheme （MSS）, the noise of wind retrieval is effectively suppressed, but the influence of the background increases. It will cause a large wind direction error in ambiguity removal when the background error is large. However, this can be mitigated by the new ambiguity removal method of Tikhonov regularization as proved in the simulation experiments. A case study on an extratropical cyclone of hurricane observed with SeaWinds at 25-km resolution shows that the retrieved wind speed for areas with rain is in better agreement with that derived from the best track analysis for the GMF＋Rain model, but the wind direction obtained with the two-dimensional variational （2DVAR） ambiguity removal is incorrect. The new method of Tikhonov regularization effectively improves the performance of wind direction ambiguity removal through choosing appropriate regularization parameters and the retrieved wind speed is almost the same as that obtained from the 2DVAR.

A Method for Sea Surface Wind Field Retrieval from SAR Image Mode Data

To retrieve wind field from SAR images, the development for surface wind field retrieval from SAR images based on the improvement of new inversion model is present. Geophysical Model Functions （GMFs） have been widely applied for wind field retrieval from SAR images. Among them CMOD4 has a good performance under low and moderate wind conditions. Although CMOD5 is developed recently with a more fundamental basis, it has ambiguity of wind speed and a shape gradient of normalized radar cross section under low wind speed condition. This study proposes a method of wind field retrieval from SAR image by com-bining CMOD5 and CMOD4 Five VV-polarisation RADARSAT2 SAR images are implemented for validation and the retrieval re-suits by a combination method （CMOD5 and CMOD4） together with CMOD4 GMF are compared with QuikSCAT wind data. The root-mean-square error （RMSE） of wind speed is 0.75 m s-1 with correlation coefficient 0.84 using the combination method and the RMSE of wind speed is 1.01 m s-1 with correlation coefficient 0.72 using CMOD4 GMF alone for those cases. The proposed method can be applied to SAR image for avoiding the internal defect in CMOD5 under low wind speed condition.

An improved wind retrieval algorithm for the HY-2A scatterometer

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.

Neural network wind retrieval from ERS-1/2 scatterometer data

A neural network methodology is presented to retrieve wind vectors from ERS - 1/2 scatterometer data. The wind directional ambiguities are eliminated by a circular median filter algorithm. All data come from ERS - 1/2 scatterometer data collocated pairs with CMCD4 vector. Comparing the results with CMCD4 and ECMWF wind vector,they agree well, which indicates that it is possible to extract wind vector from the ERS-1/2 scatterometer with the neural network method.

An Improved Method for Doppler Wind and Thermo dynamic Retrievals

A variational method is developed to retrieve winds in the first step and then thermodynamic fields in the second step from Doppler radar observations. In the first step, wind fields are retrieved at two time levels: the beginning and ending times of the data assimilation period, simultaneously from two successive volume scans by using the weak form constraints provided by the mass continuity and vorticity equations. As the retrieved wind fields are expressed by Legendre polynomial expansions at the beginning and ending times, the time tendency term in the vorticity equation can be conveniently formulated, and the retrieved winds can be compared with the radar observed radial winds in the cost function at the precise time and position of each radar beam. In the second step, the perturbation pressure and temperature fields at the middle time are then derived from the retrieved wind fields and the velocity time tendency by using the weak form constraints provided by the three momentum equations. The merits of the new method are demonstrated by numerical experiments with simulated radar observations and compared with the traditional least squares methods which consider neither the precise observation times and positions nor the velocity time tendency. The new method is also applied to real radar data for a heavy rainfall event during the 2001 Meiyu season in China.

Wind vector retrieval algorithm from spaceborne lidar data

The principal purpose of this paper is to extract entire sea surface wind＇s information from spaceborne lidar, and particularly to utilize a appropriate algorithm for removing the interference information due to white caps and subsurface water. Wind speeds are obtained through empirical relationship with sea surface mean square slopes. Wind directions are derived from relationship between wind speeds and wind directions im plied in CMOD5n geophysical models function （GMF）. Whitecaps backscattering signals were distinguished with the help of lidar depolarization ratio measurements and rectified by whitecaps coverage equation. Subsurface water backscattering signals were corrected by means of inverse distance weighted （IDW） from neighborhood non-singular data with optimal subsurface water backscattering calibration parameters. To verify the algorithm reliably, it selected NDBC＇s TAO buoy-laying area as survey region in camparison with buoys＇ wind field data and METOP satellite ASCAT of 25 km single orbit wind field data after temporal-spa tial matching. Validation results showed that the retrieval algorithm works well in terms of root mean square error （RMSE） less than 2m/s and wind direction＇s RMSE less than 21 degree.

A high wind geophysical model fuction for Quik SCAT wind retrievals and application to Typhoon IOKE

The geophysical model function （GMF） describes the relationship between a backscattering and a sea surface wind, and enables a wind vector retrieval from backscattering measurements. It is clear that the GMF plays an important role in an ocean wind vector retrieval. The performance of the existing Ku-band model function QSCAT-1 is considered to be effective at low and moderate wind speed ranges. However, in the conditions of higher wind speeds, the existing algorithms diverge alarmingly, owing to the lack of in situ data required for developing the GMF for the high wind conditions, the QSCAT-1 appears to overestimate the a0, which results in underestimating the wind speeds. Several match-up QuikSCAT and special sensor microwave/imager （SSM/I） wind speed measurements of the typhoons occurring in the west Pacific Ocean are analyzed. The results show that the SSM/I wind exhibits better agreement with the ＂best track＂ analysis wind speed than the QuikSCAT wind retrieved using QSCAT-1. On the basis of this evaluation, a correction of the QSCAT-1 model function for wind speed above 16 m/s is proposed, which uses the collocated SSM/I and QuikSCAT measurements as a training set, and a neural network approach as a multiple nonlinear regression technologytechnology.In order to validate the revised GMF for high winds, the modified GMF was applied to the QuikSCAT observations of Hurricane IOKE. The wind estimated by the QuikSCAT for Typhoon IOKE in 2006 was improved with the maximum wind speed reaching 55 m/s. An error analysis was performed using the wind fields from the Holland model as the surface truth. The results show an improved agreement with the Holland model wind when compared with the wind estimated using the QSCAT-1. However, large bias still existed, indicating that the effects of rain must be considered for further improvement.

Application of the Tikhonov regularization method to wind retrieval from scatterometer data I.Sensitivity analysis and simulation experiments

Scatterometer is an instrument which provides all-day and large-scale wind field information, and its application especially to wind retrieval always attracts meteorologists. Certain reasons cause large direction error, so it is important to find where the error mainly comes. Does it mainly result from the background field, the normalized radar cross-section （NRCS） or the method of wind retrieval？ It is valuable to research. First, depending on SDP2.0, the simulated ＇true＇ NRCS is calculated from the simulated ＇true＇ wind through the geophysical mode] function NSCAT2. The simulated background field is configured by adding a noise to the simulated ＇true＇ wind with the non-divergence constraint. Also, the simulated ＇measured＇ NRCS is formed by adding a noise to the simulated ＇true＇ NRCS. Then, the sensitivity experiments are taken, and the new method of regularization is used to improve the ambiguity removal with simulation experiments. The results show that the accuracy of wind retrieval is more sensitive to the noise in the background than in the measured NRCS; compared with the two-dimensional variational （2DVAR） ambiguity removal method, the accuracy of wind retrieval can be improved with the new method of Tikhonov regularization through choosing an appropriate regularization parameter, especially for the case of large error in the background. The work will provide important information and a new method for the wind retrieval with real data.

Sea surface wind speed retrieval under rain with the HY-2 microwave radiometer

As rain drops change the radiation and scattering characteristic of the oceans and the atmosphere, the wind speed measuring by spaceborne remote sensors under rainy conditions remains challenging for years. On the basis of a microwave radiometer（RM） loaded on HY-2 satellite, the sensitivity of some brightness temperature（TB）channels to a rain rate and the wind speed are analyzed. Consequently, two TB combinations which show minor sensitivity to rain are obtained. Meanwhile, the sensitivity of the TB combination to the wind speed is even better to the original TB channel. On the basis of these TB combinations, a wind speed retrieval algorithm is developed and compared with Wind Sat all-weather wind speed product, HY-2 RM original wind speed product and buoy in situ data. The wind speed retrieval accuracy is better than 2 m/s for rainy conditions, which is evidently superior to HY-2 RM original product. The applicability of this new algorithm is testified for the wind speed measuring in rainy weather with HY-2 RM.

Retrieval algorithm of sea surface wind vectors for WindSat based on a simple forward model

WindSat/Coriolis is the first satellite-borne polarimetric microwave radiometer, which aims to improve the potential of polarimetric microwave radiometry for measuring sea surface wind vectors from space. In this paper, a wind vector retrieval algorithm based on a novel and simple forward model was developed for WindSat. The retrieval algorithm of sea surface wind speed was developed using multiple linear regression based on the simulation dataset of the novel forward model. Sea surface wind directions that minimize the difference between simulated and measured values of the third and fourth Stokes parameters were found using maximum likelihood estimation, by which a group of ambiguous wind directions was obtained. A median filter was then used to remove ambiguity of wind direction. Evaluated with sea surface wind speed and direction data from the U.S. National Data Buoy Center （NDBC）, root mean square errors are 1.2 rn/s and 30~ for retrieved wind speed and wind direction, respectively. The evaluation results suggest that the simple forward model and the retrieval algorithm are practicable for near-real time applications, without reducing accuracy.

The Performance of Dual-Frequency Polarimetric Scatterometer in Sea Surface Wind Retrieval

The wind retrieval performance of HY-2 A scanning scatterometer operating at Ku-band in HH and VV polarizations has been well evaluated in the wind speed range of 0–25 m s^-1.In order to obtain more accurate ocean wind field,a potential extension of dual-frequency(C-band and Ku-band)polarimetric measurements is investigated for both low and very high wind speeds,from 5 to 45 m s^-1.Based on the geophysical model functions of C-band and Ku-band,the simulation results show that the polarimetric measurements of Ku-band can improve the wind vector retrieval over the entire scatterometer swath,especially in nadir area,with the wind direction root-mean-square error(RMSE)less than 12?in the wind speed range of 5–25 m s^-1.Furthermore,the results also show that C-band cross-polarization plays a very important role in improving the wind speed retrieval,with the wind speed retrieval accuracy better than 2 m s^-1 for all wind conditions(0–45 m s^-1).For extreme winds,the C-band HH backscatter coefficients modeled by CMOD5.N(H)and the ocean co-polarization ratio model at large incidence are used to retrieve sea surface wind vector.This result reveals that there is a big decrease of wind direction retrieval RMSE for extreme wind fields,and the retrieved result of C-band HH polarization is nearly the same as that of C-band VV polarization for low-to-high wind speed(5–25 m s^-1).Thus,to improve the wind retrieval for all wind conditions,the dual-frequency polarimetric scatterometer with C-band and Ku-band horizontal polarization in inner beam,and C-band horizontal and Ku-band vertical polarization in outer beam,can be used to measure ocean winds.This study will contribute to the wind retrieval with merged satellites data and the future spaceborne scatterometer.

Sea surface wind speed retrieval from Sentinel-1 HH polarization data using conventional and neural network methods

Conventional retrieval and neural network methods are used simultaneously to retrieve sea surface wind speed(SSWS)from HH-polarized Sentinel-1(S1)SAR images.The Polarization Ratio(PR)models combined with the CMOD5.N Geophysical Model Function(GMF)is used for SSWS retrieval from the HH-polarized SAR data.We compared different PR models developed based on previous C-band SAR data in HH-polarization for their applications to the S1 SAR data.The recently proposed CMODH,i.e.,retrieving SSWS directly from the HHpolarized S1 data is also validated.The results indicate that the CMODH model performs better than results achieved using the PR models.We proposed a neural network method based on the backward propagation(BP)neural network to retrieve SSWS from the S1 HH-polarized data.The SSWS retrieved using the BP neural network model agrees better with the buoy measurements and ASCAT dataset than the results achieved using the conventional methods.Compared to the buoy measurements,the bias,root mean square error(RMSE)and scatter index(SI)of wind speed retrieved by the BP neural network model are 0.10 m/s,1.38 m/s and 19.85%,respectively,while compared to the ASCAT dataset the three parameters of training set are–0.01 m/s,1.33 m/s and 15.10%,respectively.It is suggested that the BP neural network model has a potential application in retrieving SSWS from Sentinel-1 images acquired at HH-polarization.

The comparison of altimeter retrieval algorithms of the wind speed and the wave period

With the launch of altimeter,much effort has been made to develop algorithms on the wind speed and the wave period.By using a large data set of collocated altimeter and buoy measurements,the typical wind speed and wave period algorithms are validated.Based on theoretical argument and the concept of wave age,a semi-empirical algorithm for the wave period is also proposed,which has the wave-period dimension,and explicitly demonstrates the relationships between the wave period and the other variables.It is found that Ku and C band data should be applied simultaneously in order to improve either wind speed or wave period algorithms.The dual-band algorithms proposed by Chen et al.(2002) for the wind speed and Quilfen et al.(2004) for the wave period perform best in terms of a root mean square error in the practical applications.