Cross-calibration of ERS-1 and ERS-2 wind scatterometers; Towards a homogeneous 20-year-long wind vector monitoring of the earth

Abstract

The importance of long-term, continuous, and homogenous time-series of satellite data is widely accepted and strongly fostered by the international scientific community. The various global projects and initiatives undertaken in the last few years are evidences of that effort. Among those are: the Long Term Data Preservation Working Group [1], the Permanent Access to the Records of Science in Europe (PARSE) [2], or the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) [3]. One of the examples of long-term monitored variable is the wind vector. Since the European Remote-sensing Satellite (ERS)-1 launch in July 1991 and until ERS-2 decommissioning in July 2011, a continuous and consistent database of backscattering signal from the Earth surface has been built, and is now available. The Active Microwave Instrument (AMI) [4], which was one of the ERS-1 and ERS-2 payloads, provided radar backscattering coefficient measurements during the last 20 years by using its three nominal operational acquisition modes: Synthetic Aperture mode (SAR mode), Scatterometer mode (wind mode) and a special combination of the two over ocean where SAR and Scatterometer mode are interleaved (wind/wave mode). The main applications for data acquired in Scatterometer mode is related to the estimation of the wind vector over the sea surface. In that field the ERS-2 Scatterometer measurements give a very valuable contribution to the accuracy of the numerical weather forecast models, being assimilated in several meteorological weather forecast centers since the beginning of the mission. After the decommissioning of ERS-2, effort has been devoted to achieve a complete reprocessed database, including both ERS-1 and ERS-2 acquisitions [5]. The cross-calibration between these two satellites is a crucial task to obtain the homogeneousness of the wind vector database, and allow its long-term characterization. The approach followed by ESA in term of team organization, cross-calibration strategy and validation methodology towards this goal is presented in this paper as well as the preliminary results of the long-term characterization of the wind vector.