QuikSCAT geophysical model function and imaging of tropical cyclone winds

The feasibility of spaceborne scatterometers for the measurements of tropical cyclone wind fields has been investigated with the data from the SeaWinds scatterometer on QuikSCAT. The authors have examined about fifty revs of Quikscat data from seven hurricanes with collocated SSM/I rain rate. The data have been examined to determine the depedence of Quikscat /spl sigma/0s on wind speed and rain rate. It is demonstrated that an improvement of GMF together with the use of rain rate information for retrieval can improve the scatterometer estimates of TC wind speeds with a good agreement with the NHC best track analysis.