Engineering topics
Fu, Lee-Lueng
Publications and source records attributed to Fu, Lee-Lueng.
Evolution of Altimetry Calibration and Future Challenges
Over the past 20 years, altimetry calibration has evolved from an engineering-oriented exercise to a multidisciplinary endeavor driving the state of the art. This evolution has been spurred by the developing promise of altimetry to capture the large-scale, but small-amplitude, changes of the ocean surface containing the expression of climate change. The scope of altimeter calibration/validation programs has expanded commensurately. Early efforts focused on determining a constant range bias and verifying basic compliance of the data products with mission requirements. Contemporary investigations capture, with increasing accuracies, the spatial and temporal characteristics of errors in all elements of the measurement system. Dedicated calibration sites still provide the fundamental service of estimating absolute bias, but also enable long-term monitoring of the sea-surface height and constituent measurements. The use of a network of island and coastal tide gauges has provided the best perspective on the measurement stability, and revealed temporal variations of altimeter measurement system drift. The cross-calibration between successive missions provided fundamentally new information on the performance of altimetry systems. Spatially and temporally correlated errors pose challenges for future missions, underscoring the importance of cross-calibration of new measurements against the established record.
The Proposed Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) Mission
A new space mission concept called Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) is being developed jointly by a collaborative effort of the international oceanographic and hydrological communities for making high-resolution measurement of the water elevation of both the ocean and land surface water to answer the questions about the oceanic submesoscale processes and the storage and discharge of land surface water. The key instrument payload would be a Ka-band radar interferometer capable of making high-resolution wide-swath altimetry measurement. This paper describes the proposed science objectives and requirements as well as the measurement approach of SWOT, which is baselined to be launched in 2019. SWOT would demonstrate this new approach to advancing both oceanography and land hydrology and set a standard for future altimetry missions.
The Surface Water / Ocean Topography Mission: Capabilities for Coastal Oceanography
No abstract available
SWOT: The Surface Water and Ocean Topography Mission. Wide- Swath Altimetric Elevation on Earth
The elevation of the surface of the ocean and freshwater bodies on land holds key information on many important processes of the Earth System. The elevation of the ocean surface, called ocean surface topography, has been measured by conventional nadirlooking radar altimeter for the past two decades. The data collected have been used for the study of large-scale circulation and sea level change. However, the spatial resolution of the observations has limited the study to scales larger than about 200 km, leaving the smaller scales containing substantial kinetic energy of ocean circulation that is responsible for the flux of heat, dissolved gas and nutrients between the upper and the deep ocean. This flux is important to the understanding of the ocean's role in regulatingfuture climate change.The elevation of the water bodies on land is a key parameter required for the computation of storage and discharge of freshwater in rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Globally, the spatial and temporal variability of water storage and discharge is poorly known due to the lack of well-sampled observations. In situ networks measuring river flows are declining worldwide due to economic and political reasons. Conventional altimeter observations suffers from the complexity of multiple peaks caused by the reflections from water, vegetation canopy and rough topography, resulting in much less valid data over land than over the ocean. Another major limitation is the large inter track distance preventing good coverage of rivers and other water bodies.This document provides descriptions of a new measurement technique using radar interferometry to obtain wide-swath measurement of water elevation at high resolution over both the ocean and land. Making this type of measurement, which addresses the shortcomings of conventional altimetry in both oceanographic and hydrologic applications, is the objective of a mission concept called Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT), which was recommended by the National Research Council's first decadal survey of NASA's Earth science program. This document provides wide-ranging examples of research opportunities in oceanography and land hydrology that would be enabled by the new type of measurement. Additional applications in many other branches of Earth System science ranging from ocean bathymetry to sea ice dynamics are also discussed. Many of the technical issues in making the measurement are discussed as well. Also presented is a preliminary design of the SWOT Mission concept, which is being jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency.
Radiometer Testbed Development for SWOT
Conventional altimeters include nadir looking colocated 18-37 GHz microwave radiometer to measure wet tropospheric path delay. These have reduced accuracy in coastal zone (within ~50 km from land) and do not provide wet path delay over land. The addition of high frequency channels to Jason-class radiometer will improve retrievals in coastal regions and enable retrievals over land. High-frequency window channels, 90, 130 and 166 GHz are optimum for improving performance in coastal region and channels on 183 GHz water vapor line are ideal for over-land retrievals.
Mechanisms of Interannual Variations of the Meridional Overturning Circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean
The authors investigate the nature of the interannual variability of the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) of the North Atlantic Ocean using an Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) assimilation product for the period of 1993-2003. The time series of the first empirical orthogonal function of the MOC is found to be correlated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index, while the associated circulation anomalies correspond to cells extending over the full ocean depth. Model sensitivity experiments suggest that the wind is responsible for most of this interannual variability, at least south of 40(deg)N. A dynamical decomposition of the meridional streamfunction allows a further look into the mechanisms. In particular, the contributions associated with 1) the Ekman flow and its depth-independent compensation, 2) the vertical shear flow, and 3) the barotropic gyre flowing over zonally varying topography are examined. Ekman processes are found to dominate the shorter time scales (1.5-3 yr), while for longer time scales (3-10 yr) the MOC variations associated with vertical shear flow are of greater importance. The latter is primarily caused by heaving of the pycnocline in the western subtropics associated with the stronger wind forcing. Finally, how these changes in the MOC affect the meridional heat transport (MHT) is examined. It is found that overall, Ekman processes explain a larger part of interannual variability (3-10 yr) for MHT (57%) than for the MOC (33%).
Intraseasonal Variability of the Equatorial Indian Ocean Observed from Sea Surface Height, Wind, and Temperature Data
The forcing of the equatorial Indian Ocean by the highly periodic monsoon wind cycle creates many interesting intraseasonal variabilities. The frequency spectrum of the wind stress observations from the European Remote Sensing Satellite scatterometers reveals peaks at the seasonal cycle and its higher harmonics at 180, 120, 90, and 75 days. The observations of sea surface height (SSH) from the Jason and Ocean Topography Experiment (TOPEX)/Poseidon radar altimeters are analyzed to study the ocean's response. The focus of the study is on the intraseasonal periods shorter than the annual period. The semiannual SSH variability is characterized by a basin mode involving Rossby waves and Kelvin waves traveling back and forth in the equatorial Indian Ocean between 10(deg)S and 10(deg)N. However, the interference of these waves with each other masks the appearance of individual Kelvin and Rossby waves, leading to a nodal point (amphidrome) of phase propagation on the equator at the center of the basin. The characteristics of the mode correspond to a resonance of the basin according to theoretical models. The theory also calls for similar modes at 90 and 60 days.