Extending the Usability of Radiometer Ocean Surface Wind Measurements to All-Weather Conditions for NOAA Operations: Application to AMSR2

This article describes the development and validation of a statistical algorithm to retrieve global all-weather sea surface wind speed (GAWS) from microwave radiometers in operational environment. Measurements from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-2 (AMSR2) are utilized to demonstrate the efficacy of the new all-weather wind speed data product. The GAWS algorithm exploits the linear combination of dual-polarized radiometer channels to significantly mitigate the effect of rain contamination while maintaining sensitivity to all wind speed regimes from global winds to tropical cyclone (TC) conditions. The GAWS algorithm was developed using ≈ 1000 AMSR2 orbits from 2013 to 2021 covering all possible variations of brightness temperatures and wind speeds. The Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) and the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting Model (HWRF) were used as the assumed surface truth for training and validation. Results from comprehensive quantitative and qualitative analyses show that the GAWS retrievals are less susceptible to rain than standard microwave radiometer wind speeds and can reach hurricane force winds up to hurricane category 5 (> 70m/s).