Studies of atmospheric and oceanic phenomena with the NASA Scatterometer

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Scatterometer (NSCAT) was successfully launched into a near-polar, Sun-synchronous orbit on the Japanese Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS) in August 1996 from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. The six antennas of NSCAT send microwave pulses at a frequency of 14 GHz to the Earth's surface and measure the backscatter. The antennas scan two 600-km bands of the ocean which are separated by a 330-km data gap. From NSCAT observations, surface wind vectors can be derived at 25-km spatial resolution, covering 77% of the ice-free ocean in one day and 97% of the ocean in two days. This article describes the information gathered by NSCAT about equatorial Kelvin waves, monsoon phenomena and typhoons.