Ocean Surface Retracking in Tropical Cyclones With the KaIA Airborne Radar Altimeter

Bjorland, Clayton M.; Jelenak, Zorana; Sapp, Joseph W.; Shoup, Casey G.; Isom, Bradley M.; Chang, Paul S.; Carswell, James R.

doi:10.1109/JSTARS.2025.3542635

i

Ocean Surface Retracking in Tropical Cyclones With the KaIA Airborne Radar Altimeter

2025
By Bjorland, Clayton M. ; Jelenak, Zorana ; Sapp, Joseph W. ; ...

Details

Journal Title:

IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing
Personal Author:

Bjorland, Clayton M. ; Jelenak, Zorana ; Sapp, Joseph W. ; Shoup, Casey G. ; Isom, Bradley M. ; Chang, Paul S. ; Carswell, James R.
NOAA Program & Office:

NESDIS (National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service) ; STAR (Center for Satellite Applications and Research)
Description:

KaIA is an airborne Ka-band radar altimeter capable of centimetric range resolution and near real-time significant wave height retrievals. Beginning in 2019, KaIA has been installed on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) WP-3D Hurricane Hunter aircraft to collect data in Atlantic tropical cyclones during the hurricane season, and extratropical cyclones during the winter storm season. This article details recent retracker algorithm innovations that address specific difficulties with airborne altimetry in extreme weather. Our two most significant contributions to retracker algorithm development are: 1) a higher-order expansion of the classic Brown (1977) altimetry waveform to accommodate off-nadir pointing angles up to 3.25∘; 2) a GPS stabilization algorithm to enable along-track averaging while aircraft altitude is changing unpredictably. Comparisons against coincident measurements and modeled data are presented to validate algorithm improvements and document KaIA's performance throughout the 2021-2023 hurricane seasons. We measure less than 0.1 m bias in significant wave height retrievals relative to coincident satellite altimeters.
Source:

IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 18, 6480-6491
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2025.3542635
ISSN:

1939-1404 ; 2151-1535
Format:

PDF
Publisher:

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Document Type:

Journal Article
License:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Rights Information:

CC BY
Compliance:

Submitted
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha-512:15e1b5f0febac3acaee4caff802d66b83cad3c48e29c5b8d500fa533b73609f456c1af6c9d569cb947784c6688cb41c43df198d6771f821377a031896d21bbbc
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/70530/noaa_70530_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 4.20 MB ]

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