Retrieval of Ocean Surface And Atmospheric Parameters from Multichannel Microwave Radiometric Measurements

This paper discusses the retrieval from Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) data of ocean surface temperature, surface wind speed, rain rate, cloud height, and the amount of water vapor and nonprecipitating liquid water over the ocean. The sensitivity of the algorithms that retrieve the wind speed and seasurface temperature in the absence of rain to the (undetected) presence of rain, and the accuracy of a more general method that retrieves rain rate along with other meteorological parameters are discussed. These investigations are based on models of the microwave emission from the Earth´s atmosphere over the ocean in the presence of rain. The modeling technique and the retrieval methods are also discussed.