Monitoring Rapid Change in the Atmosphere Using Cygnss Wind Speed Measurements

NASA's CYclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) mission operates a constellation of 8 small satellites that provide ocean wind speed measurements with dense spatial coverage and a median revisit time of about 4 hours. This paper investigates the possibility of using the “rapid revisit” characteristics of CYGNSS measurements to create a detector of convective activity by examining the variability of CYGNSS wind speeds over small intervals in space and time.