Bora events over the adriatic sea and black sea studied by multi-sensor satellite imagery

Bora events over the Adriatic Sea and Black Sea are investigated by using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images acquired by the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) onboard the Envisat satellite, optical and infrared images acquired by the MODIS sensor onboard the Terra satellite, and sea surface wind data acquired by the scatterometer onboard the Quikscat satellite. Quantitative information on the sea surface wind field is extracted from the ASAR images by using the CMOD4 wind scatterometer model. It is shown that SAR images yield information of the spatial structure of bora events over coastal waters with high spatial resolution that cannot be obtained by other spaceborne instruments. Furthermore, by using ASAR data in combination with MODIS data we are able to detect cyclonic atmospheric eddies, which are often generated by lateral wind shear associated with bora events.