Monitoring marine weather systems using Quickscat and TRMM data

Ocean surface precipitation and vertical profile of precipitation have been estimated from the radar and the microwave radiometer of the Tropical Rain Measuring Mission (TRMM). They have also been estimated using wind and humidity profiles provided by rawindsondes or operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) centers. However, in situ measurements are too sparce and the spatial resolutions of numerical modesl are too coarse to catch small marine storms. Spaceborne scatterometers, like the Quikscat launched in June 1999, provide surface wind velocity and, therefore, surface wind divergence at spatial resolutions that are much higher than NWP products. The influence of scatterometer winds is not confined to the surface, but will be felt throughout the atmospheric column by of mass conservation and vertical transport.

An information system has been established to produce, display and disseminate, uniformly gridded Quikscat data at real time. This data set is complemented by the hydrologic parameters from TRMM. The capability to monitor the evolution marine weather systems and to study the interplay between dynamics and thermodynamics will be demonstrated. The surface precipitation patterns and the vertical profiles of moisture sink are computed from NWP data, with improvement by scatterometer winds. The results are compared with observations from TRMM