Developments in Using GPS for Oceanographic Remote Sensing: Retrieval of Ocean Surface Wind Speed and Wind Direction

A. Komjathy, M. Armatys, D. Masters, P. Axelrad, V.U. Zavorotny and S.J. Katzberg

Abstract:	Global Positioning System (GPS) signals reflected from the ocean surface have potential use for various remote sensing purposes. Some possibilities are measurements of surface roughness characteristics from which wave height, wind speed and direction could be determined. In this paper, recent reflected GPS measurements collected via aircraft with a delay mapping GPS receiver, are used to explore the possibility of determining ocean surface wind speed and direction during Hurricanes Michael and Keith in October, 2000. To interpret the GPS data, a theoretical model is used to describe the correlation power of the reflected GPS signals for different time delays as a function of geometrical and environmental parameters. Wind direction estimates are based on a multiple satellite non-linear least squares solution. The estimated wind speed using surface-reflected GPS data collected at a variety of wind speed conditions shows an overall agreement better than 2 m/s with data obtained from nearby buoy data and independent wind speed measurements derived from TOPEX/Poseidon, ERS, and QuikSCAT observations. Wind direction agreement with QuikSCAT measurements appear to be at the 30 degree level. In addition to the actual results we also present an error analysis describing the expected performance of the GPS technique.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2001 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 22 - 24, 2001 Westin Long Beach Hotel Long Beach, CA
Pages:	753 - 761
Cite this article:	Komjathy, A., Armatys, M., Masters, D., Axelrad, P., Zavorotny, V.U., Katzberg, S.J., "Developments in Using GPS for Oceanographic Remote Sensing: Retrieval of Ocean Surface Wind Speed and Wind Direction," Proceedings of the 2001 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Long Beach, CA, January 2001, pp. 753-761.
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