Thursday, 13 February 2003: 3:30 PM
Critical examination of a method for estimating the buoyancy flux from SAR imagery
A method for estimating surface layer similarity parameters from a
satellite SAR over the ocean was presented in Young et
al. (2000). Mean surface winds (and hence u*) are estimated using a
scatterometer model function (CMOD-4) applied to the image with an
assumed wind direction. The along-wind velocity variance is calculated
from these wind images. In the convective limit zi/L is related to
sigma_u and u*. The inversion height, zi, may be estimated from the
scale of boundary layer convection which in turn can be estimated from
the sea surface patterns imaged by SAR. Hence the Obukhov length may
be retrieved from SAR in convective conditions. With an independent
SST measurement the surface buoyancy flux can also be retrieved. We
test this method against a large number of SAR images from the
Tropical Pacific ocean over the TAO array and off the east coast of
the USA over NOAA NDBC buoys. Surface truth is provided by both in
situ flux measurements and by the COARE algorithm applied to the mean
buoy data. Sensitivity to pixel size, sub-image size, stratification
and wind direction are explored.
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