The Influence of Satellite Observation Angle on Tropical Cyclone Intensity Estimation using the Deviation Angle Variance Technique

Based on 12 years (2004-2015) of GOES-East satellite infrared (IR) imagery over the North Atlantic basin, the diurnal cycle of the tropical cyclone (TC) Deviation Angle Variation (DAV) value is analysed, and a backward 24-hr time average DAV is selected to filter the noise in the DAV-TC intensity estimation. The effect of satellite observation angle on the DAV-TC intensity estimation is analysed in theory, in a case study, and in the longer-term statistics. Based on these results, an improvement to the DAV-TC intensity estimation is presented and evaluated in this study. The results show that, after taking the observation angle into account, the new DAV-TC intensity estimation is shown to produce smaller errors and higher correlations than the previous versions, especially for major hurricanes.