Title: Simulation and Performance Analysis of the Airborne DopplerScatt Concept for Simultaneous Measurements of Ocean Surface Currents and Winds
Presenting Author: Maxim Neumann
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Co-Author(s): Dragana Perkovic-Martin

Abstract:
Ocean surface currents impact heat transport, surface momentum and gas fluxes, ocean productivity and marine biological communities, as well as have social impacts on shipping and disaster management. There is an intrinsic two-way coupling between ocean currents and surface winds and concurrent measurements of the two enable the understanding of the relevant air-sea interaction. The ability to simultaneously measure winds and currents would improve the accuracy of both individual measurements. A novel Doppler scatterometer concept to measure these quantities simultaneously over a wide swath with high accuracy is being implemented through funding by NASA's Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) Instrument Incubator Program (IIP). The Doppler scatterometer (DopplerScatt) is an airborne Ka-band spinning pencil-beam Doppler scatterometer instrument, currently in development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Caltech. This project will demonstrate the first simultaneous measurments of ocean surface winds and currents that can be scaled to wide swath space-borne observations using a single cost-effective instrument. We will present the simulation and performance analysis results for the application of the airborne spinning Ka-band pencil-beam Doppler Scatterometer (DopplerScatt). As the results demonstrate, it is possible to achieve wide-swath ocean surface currents velocity accuracy well under 10 cm/s, and wind speed accuracy under 2 m/s (for wind speeds up to 20 m/s).