Description:

Air-sea interactions and marine boundary layer processes play a vital role in Earth’s weather, climate, and ocean circulation. Traditionally, observations of the atmosphere near the ocean surface are limited to in-situ observations from buoys and field campaigns, as satellite observations have suffered from attenuation of their signals due to precipitation and/or infrequent revisits. This has led to incomplete measurements of the marine boundary layer diurnal cycle and the rapid evolution of boundary layer processes. Recent innovations in retrieval techniques, along with launch of new satellite missions, have provide new tools for understanding and observing air-sea and marine boundary layer processes, often in all weather conditions. These include, but are certainly not limited to: precipitation radar-based estimates of melting snow in the ocean, as well as low frequency (L-band; 19 cm) passive microwave radiometers and bistatic scatterometry-based estimates of surface winds and turbulent heat fluxes. These observatories, increasingly launched as a constellation and/or in a non-sun-synchronous orbit, can also provide observations with higher temporal and spatial resolutions. These data allow new investigations of the role air-sea interactions play in the development of tropical and extratropical systems and the oceanic responses, and allow for more comprehensive observations of the marine boundary layer. In this session, we bring together researchers who are using novel satellite observations and techniques (such as those from GPM, CYGNSS, COWVR, TEMPEST, TROPICS, and others) to improve our understanding of ocean-atmosphere and marine boundary layer processes and their interactions that contribute to oceanic and atmospheric evolution.