Comparing CALIPSO-Derived Estimates of Sea Surface Winds to Measurements and Models

The Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) mission has been providing high quality global, vertically-resolved measurements of clouds and aerosolsfor the last 12 years. After the recent release of Version 4.1 data products, plans are now underway for additional algorithm enhancements and new data product contents. One such focus will be the analysis of ocean surface returns to retrieve the overlying atmospheric column optical depth (Venkata and Reagan, 2016). To accurately characterize the ocean surface return, a reliable wind speed measurement is required. In this presentation we will present a comparison study of publicly available wind speed measurements (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSRE) and Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA2)) collocated with CALIOP surface returns along with wind speed values derived using a Feed-Forward Artificial Neural Network and wind speeds derived using equations set forth in Y. Hu et al., 2008. Our goal is to remove uncertainty, identify bias (regionally and globally) within the available input products, and determine the best methodology/source of wind speed for the ocean surface optical depth retrieval.

References

Venkata, S. and J. A. Reagan, 2016: Aerosol Retrievals from CALIPSO Lidar Ocean Surface Returns, Remote Sens., 8, 1006, doi:10.3390/rs8121006.

Hu, Y., K. Stamnes, M. Vaughan, J. Pelon, C. Weimer, D. Wu, M. Cisewski, W. Sun, P. Yang, B. Lin, A. Omar, D. Flittner, C. Hostetler, C. Trepte, D. Winker, G. Gibson, and M. Santa-Maria, 2008: Sea surface wind speed estimation from space-based lidar measurements, Atmos. Chem. Phys.,8, 3593–3601, doi:10.5194/acp-8-3593-2008.