Assimilation of reprocessed ERS scatterometer data into ECMWF weather analysis on the Mediterranean Sea

摘要

Since the launch of ERS-1 in 1991 and ERS-2 in 1995, carrying aC-band Scatterometer, a data set of more than thirteen years ofbackscattered signal from the Earth surface is available for exploitation.With its global coverage, day or night and all-weather operation, ERSScatterometer data offer unique opportunity for long-term studies andresearch. To fulfill the needs of the scientific community, the EuropeanSpace Agency (ESA) has developed the project: Advanced ScatterometerProcessing System (ASPS). Main scope of the project is to provide withstate-of-the-art algorithm, high quality and homogenous Scatterometermeasurements (sigma nought) of the Earth surface and high quality wind fieldover the Oceans by re-processing the entire ERS mission. Additional scope isto provide on experimental basis scientific products in high resolutiontailored for the emerging Scatterometer application on Ice and Land. TheASPS project is now in a pre-operational phase and the scope of the paper isto give to the scientific community an overview of the ASPS data and showthe assimilation of the data into the ECMWF weather analysis system. ASPSdata hopefully will help the scientific community to better understand andmonitor the Earth's climate changes and to protect our environment.