3D wind field from spaceborne Doppler radar

摘要

Numerous space radar missions are presently envisioned to study the water cycle in the tropics. Among them, the DYCECT (DYnamique, énergie et Cycle de l'Eau dans la Convection Tropicale) mission, a French proposal (submitted to the French CNES Agency), could embark a Doppler radar (W-band or Ka-band) with scanning possibilities onboard a low-orbiting satellite. This instrument could be implemented in addition to a Passive Microwave Radiometer (PMR), and eventually an improved ScaraB-like broadband radiometer, and a lightning detection instrument. This package will document the ice microphysics and the heat budgets. Since the microphysics and the water and energy budgets are strongly driven by the dynamics, the addition of a Doppler radar with scanning possibilities could provide valuable information (3D wind and rain fields) and a large statistic of such critical information over the entire tropics and for all the stages of development. These new information could be used to better understand the tropical convection and to improve convection parameterization relevant for cloud and climate models. It could be used also to associate direct applications such as now-casting and risk prevention. The present study focuses on the feasibility of such 3D wind field retrieval from spaceborne radar. It uses a simulator of some parts of the spaceborne radar in order i) to evaluate the sensitivity of the retrieved wind fields to the scanning strategies and sampling parameters, and to the instrumental and platform parameters and ii) to determine the best parameters providing the most accurate wind fields.