STAR title banner
NOAA | NESDIS | STAR | SOCD
OSWT Home  |  Product Description  |  Data Products  |  Research  |  Contact Us  

NOAA Ocean Winds Mini-Workshop

November 30, 2007

This workshop was held immediately following the annual NOAA Hurricane Conference at the Tropical Prediction Center/National Hurricane Center during the week of November 26-30, 2007. The objectives were to brief the participants representing the various centers and regions at the NOAA Hurricane Conference on the status and future of Satellite Ocean Surface Vector Winds at NOAA and to enlist their participation in the ongoing process to determine what capability to transition to operations as a QuikSCAT follow-on mission. An associated action item listed below was also submitted to the conference.

Ocean Vector Winds Experience - Joseph Sienkiewicz

An Overview of Recent Actions/Events to Assure a Continued OSVW Capability - Paul Chang

Next-Generation OSVW Instrument Studies at JPL - Ernesto Rodriguez

QuikSCAT Follow-On Options: Wind Vector Retrievals Simulation Study Results - Zorana Jelenak

List of Participants

ACTION:

Item 49-07 Joe Sienkiewicz, OPC

Title: Status of the Future of Satellite Ocean Surface Vector Winds

INFORMATIONAL:

QuikSCAT is well past its life expectancy and to date there are no concrete plans to maintain or improve upon this capability for ocean surface vector winds. NOAA initiated a study in June 2007 with NASA JPL to evaluate two possible options for ocean surface vector winds measurements from space. The two mission options are: 1) a QuikSCAT-like instrument 2) a next-generation scatterometer mission or Extended Ocean Vector Wind Mission (XOVWM) that was recommended by the NRC Decadal Survey. The XOVWM would begin to address the ocean surface vector winds requirements stated by the broader operational forecasting community in the NOAA's Operational Ocean Surface Winds Workshop Report (Chang & Jelenak, 2006).

The JPL study will provide cost, time and risk estimates for the two scatterometer options. In order for NOAA to make an optimal decision, it is important to assess what additional impact the XOVWM will have on NOAA operations and whether those improvements would warrant the difference in cost, launch delay, and risk between two options.

To assess the potential operational impact of a next-generation scatterometer instrument (XOVWM), the joint NOAA-JPL operational validation group has created a study plan that has several objectives:

1) Based on the proposed XOVWM concept, define threshold requirements for this mission

2) Assess threshold requirements relative to NOAA's new operational requirements

3) Simulate and validate measurements and retrievals of both a next-generation and QuikSCAT-like scatterometer in tropical cyclones, extra-tropical storms and coastal regions.

The two options and possible impacts will be discussed in a Workshop format on Friday, November 30, immediately following this conference. Several simulations of wind retrievals from tropical and extratropical cyclones will be presented along with a few examples from orographically induced winds in coastal regions. It is requested that participants from the various centers and regions participate to review the simulations and to discuss the recommendation process.

Agenda

Data, algorithms, and images presented on STAR websites are intended for experimental use only and are not supported on an operational basis. Disclaimer details

Dept. of CommerceNOAANESDISPrivacy PolicyDisclaimersInformation QualityAccessibilitySearchCustomer Survey
Site owner: STARContact webmaster • Revised: 4 June 2010 1:06 PM