New Possibilities for Geophysical Parameter Retrievals Opened by GCOM-W1 AMSR2

A new approach to retrieve sea surface wind speed (SWS) in tropical cyclones (TCs) from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) data is presented. Analysis of all six AMSR2 C- and X-band channel measurements over TCs is shown to efficiently help to separate the rain contribution. Corrected measurements at 6.9 and 10.65 GHz are then used to retrieve the SWS. Spatial and temporal collocation of AMSR2 and tropical rain measurement mission (TRMM) microwave instrument (TMI) data is then further used to empirically relate TMI rain rate (RR) product to RR estimates from AMSR2 in hurricanes. SWS estimates are validated with measurements from the stepped frequency microwave radiometer (SFMR). As further tested, more than 100 North Atlantic and North Pacific TCs are analyzed for the 2012–2014 period. Despite few particular cases, most SWS fields are in a very good agreement with TC center data on maximum wind speeds, radii of storm, and hurricane winds. As also compared, very high consistency between AMSR2 and L-band SMOS wind speed estimates are obtained, especially for the super typhoon Haiyan, to prove the high potential of AMSR2 measurements in TCs.