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Results for “Passive Microwave Remote Sensing”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2004

Investigation of the Seasonal Freeze/Thaw Cycle of Soils in the GAPP Regions

The objective of this project is to understand the current and future impacts and feedbacks of seasonally frozen ground on the regional and global climate system and the ecosystem as a whole. More specifically, we proposed to: investigate the dynamics of the seasonally freezing and thawing processes and their relations to current climatic conditions through in situ data analysis and numerical modeling; develop a comprehensive algorithm to detect surface soil freeze/thaw status for snow-free land surface using passive microwave remote sensing data and for snow-covered land surface using numerical modeling, and validate the algorithm and numerical model using available ground-based measurements; investigate seasonal and inter-annual variations of frozen soils in the GAPP regions using data generated from the new validated algorithm and their relations to the environmental factors such as air temperature, snow cover, surface morphology, soil type and soil moisture; generate a frozen soil data set which describes the timing, duration, thickness, and area extent of seasonally frozen ground for the period from 1978 to present. The proposed research will be accomplished through data analysis, remote sensing, and numerical modeling.

FREEZE-THAW TESTS↗
NASA NTRS1993

Polarimetric Passive Remote Sensing of Wind-generated Sea Surfaces and Ocean Wind Vectors

This paper investigates the theory of polarimetric passive remote sensing of wind-generated sea surfaces. A two-scale polarimetric scattering and emission model of sea surfaces is developed to interpret existing active and passive remote sensing microwave signatures of sea surfaces, and to investigate the potential application of polarimetic radiometry to ocean surface winds.

Polarimetric Remote Sensing↗
NASA NTRS1994

(abstract) Tropospheric Calibration for the Mars Observer Gravity Wave Experiment

In spring 1993, microwave radiometer-based tropospheric calibration was provided for the Mars Observer gravitational wave search. The Doppler shifted X-band radio signals propagating between Earth and the Mars Observer satellite were precisely measured to determine path length variations that might signal passage of gravitational waves. Experimental sensitivity was restricted by competing sources of variability in signal transit time. Principally, fluctuations in the solar wind and ionospheric plasma density combined with fluctions in tropospheric refractivity determined the detection limit. Troposphere-induced path delay fluctions are dominated by refractive changes caused by water vapor inhomogeneities blowing through the signal path. Since passive microwave remote sensing techniques are able to determine atmospheric propagation delays, radiometer-based tropospheric calibration was provided at the Deep Space Network Uranus tracking site (DSS-15). Two microwave water vapor radiometers (WVRs), a microwave temperature profiler (MTP), and a ground based meterological station were deployed to determine line-of-sight vapor content and vertical temperature profile concurrently with Mars Observer tracking measurements. This calibration system provided the capability to correct Mars Observer Doppler data for troposphere-induced path variations. We present preliminary analysis of the Doppler and WVR data sets illustrating the utility of WVRs to calibrate Doppler data. This takes an important step toward realizing the ambitious system required to support future Ka-band Cassini satellite gravity wave tropospheric calibration system.

atmospheric water vapor microwave remote sensing↗
NASA NTRS2009

Comment on Modified Stokes Parameters

It is common practice in passive microwave remote sensing (microwave radiometry) to express observables as temperatures and in the case of polarimetric radiometry to use what are called "Modified Stokes Parameters in Brightness Temperature" to describe the scene. However, definitions with slightly different normalization (with and without division by bandwidth) have appeared in the literature. The purpose of this manuscript is to present an analysis to clarify the meaning of terms in the definition and resolve the question of the proper normalization.

Le Vine, D.M.↗
NASA NTRS2015

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Microwave Imager (GMI): Instrument Overview and Early On-Orbit Performance

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission is an international satellite mission that uses measurements from an advanced radar/radiometer system on a core observatory as reference standards to unify and advance precipitation estimates made by a constellation of research and operational microwave sensors. The GPM core observatory was launched on February 27, 2014 at 18:37 UT in a 65◦ inclination nonsun-synchronous orbit. GPM focuses on precipitation as a key component of the Earth's water and energy cycle, and has the capability to provide near-real-time observations for tracking severe weather events, monitoring freshwater resources, and other societal applications. The GPM microwave imager (GMI) on the core observatory provides the direct link to the constellation radiometer sensors, which fly mainly in polar orbits. The GMI sensitivity, accuracy, and stability play a crucial role in unifying the measurements from the GPM constellation of satellites. The instrument has exhibited highly stable operations through the duration of the calibration/validation period. This paper provides an overview of the GMI instrument and a report of early on-orbit commissioning activities. It discusses the on-orbit radiometric sensitivity, absolute calibration accuracy, and stability for each radiometric channel. Index Terms-Calibration accuracy, passive microwave remote sensing, radiometric sensitivity.

GPM↗
NASA NTRS2016

Status of the Signals of Opportunity Airborne Demonstrator (SoOp-AD)

Root zone soil moisture (RZSM) is not directly measured by any current satellite instrument, despite its importance as a key link between surface hydrology and deeper processes. Presently, model assimilation of surface measurements or indirect estimates using other methods must be used to estimate this value. Signals of Opportunity (SoOp) methods, exploiting reflected P- and S-band communication satellite signals, have many of the benefits of both active and passive microwave remote sensing. Reutilization of active transmitters, with forward-scattering geometry, presents a strong reflected signal even at orbital altitudes. Microwave radiometry is advantageous as it measures emissivity, which is directly related to dielectric constant and sensitive to water content of soil. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is used in P-band (400 MHz) for soil moisture and biomass, but faces issues in obtaining permission to transmit due to spectrum regulations, particularly over North America and Europe. A primary advantage of SAR is excellent spatial resolution. Signals-of-opportunity (SoOp) reflectometry provides a good compromise between radiometry and SAR by providing decent sensitivity and special resolution for RZSM measurements without issues of spectrum access. Further, a SoOp instrument would not be limited to operating in only a few protected frequencies and is also expected to have less susceptibility to radio-frequency interference (RFI). Although advantageous if available, SoOp techniques do not require the ability to demodulate or decode the communication signals. The SoOp instrument is receive only and therefore requires much less electrical power than a SAR and is more similar to a radiometer in receiver architecture. These unique features of SoOp circumvent past obstacles to a spaceborne P-band remote sensing mission and have the potential to enable new RZSM measurements that are not possible with present technology. We will present the latest development status of a SoOp reflectometer airborne demonstrator (SoOp-AD) operating at 250 MHz to take advantage of existing communication satellite. The instrument is currently in laboratory integration and test.

Reflectometers↗
NASA NTRS2021

Revisiting the Global Patterns of Seasonal Cycle in Sea Surface Salinity

Argo profiling floats and L-band passive microwave remote sensing have significantly improved the global sampling of sea surface salinity (SSS) in the past 15 years, allowing the study of the range of SSS seasonal variability using concurrent satellite and in situ platforms. Here, harmonic analysis was applied to four 0.25° satellite products and two 1° in situ products between 2016 and 2018 to determine seasonal harmonic patterns. The 0.25° World Ocean Atlas (WOA) version 2018 was referenced to help assess the harmonic patterns from a long-term perspective based on the 3-year period. The results show that annual harmonic is the most characteristic signal of the seasonal cycle, and semiannual harmonic is important in regions influenced by monsoon and major rivers. The percentage of the observed variance that can be explained by harmonic modes varies with products, with values ranging between 50% and 72% for annual harmonic and between 15% and 19% for semiannual harmonic. The large spread in the explained variance by the annual harmonic reflects the large disparity in nonseasonal variance (or noise) in the different products. Satellite products are capable of capturing sharp SSS features on meso- and frontal scales and the patterns agree well with the WOA 2018. These products are, however, subject to the impacts of radiometric noises and are algorithm dependent. The coarser-resolution in situ products may underrepresent the full range of high-frequency small scale SSS variability when data record is short, which may have enlarged the explained SSS variance by the annual harmonic.

L-band↗
NASA NTRS1986

Microwave remote sensing: Active and passive. Volume 3 - From theory to applications

Aspects of volume scattering and emission theory are discussed, taking into account a weakly scattering medium, the Born approximation, first-order renormalization, the radiative transfer method, and the matrix-doubling method. Other topics explored are related to scatterometers and probing systems, the passive microwave sensing of the atmosphere, the passive microwave sensing of the ocean, the passive microwave sensing of land, the active microwave sensing of land, and radar remote sensing applications. Attention is given to inversion techniques, atmospheric attenuation and emission, a temperature profile retrieval from ground-based observations, mapping rainfall rates, the apparent temperature of the sea, the emission behavior of bare soil surfaces, the emission behavior of vegetation canopies, the emission behavior of snow, wind-vector radar scatterometry, radar measurements of sea ice, and the back-scattering behavior of cultural vegetation canopies.

Ulaby, F. T.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Single-Scattering Properties of Melting Precipitation for GPM Passive Microwave and Radar Remote Sensing Applications

Over the past two decades, detailed computational simulations of the intricate three dimensional structures of ice-phase crystals and aggregates of those crystals have been developed. The microwave single-scattering properties of these simulated ice particles have been computed and used to improve quantitative estimates of snow rates and to better deRne the vertical structure of snow water contents in deep convective systems, as derived from satellite-borne passive microwave and/or radar remote sensing measurements. The same icephase particles have more recently been used as the starting point for simulations of melting precipitation using computational melting methods. In the current study, a heuristic melting method, as well as a physically-based melting procedure based on smoothed-particle hydrodynamics, are applied to ice particle models to describe the full evolution of the particles from dry snow to liquid drops. The discrete dipole approximation is utilized to calculate the single-scattering properties of the mixed-phase particles throughout the melting process. Then, the properties of the particles are “mapped” into simpliRed microphysical simulations of particle size spectra in the melting layers of stratiform, precipitating clouds. The bulk single-scattering properties of the melting layers and the sensitivity of their properties to modeling assumptions are explored, and the implications for combined radar-radiometer precipitation remote sensing from GPM are discussed.

William S Olson↗
NASA NTRS1981

A survey of passive microwave and hybrid remote sensing of precipitation

It is noted that for practical realization of new information on precipitation during this decade, satellite observing systems must be coupled into surface-based observations and computer models of weather systems as they develop. Methods to combine the satellite/surface-based/model capabilities are discussed and several precipitation estimation pilot studies are proposed and outlined.

Weinman, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Microwave remote sensing: Active and passive. Volume 2 - Radar remote sensing and surface scattering and emission theory

The fundamental principles of radar backscattering measurements are presented, including measurement statistics, Doppler and pulse discrimination techniques, and associated ambiguity functions. The operation of real and synthetic aperture sidelooking airborne radar systems is described, along with the internal and external calibration techniques employed in scattering measurements. Attention is given to the physical mechanisms responsible for the scattering emission behavior of homogeneous and inhomogeneous media, through a discussion of surface roughness, dielectric properties and inhomogeneity, and penetration depth. Simple semiempirical models are presented. Theoretical models involving greater mathematical sophistication are also given for extended ocean and bare soil surfaces, and the more general case of a vegetation canopy over a rough surface.

Ulaby, F. T.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Intercomparisons between passive and active microwave remote sensing, and hydrological modeling for soil moisture

Soil moisture estimations from a distributed hydrological model and two microwave sensors were compared with ground measurements collected during the MAC-HYDRO'90 experiment. The comparison was done with the purpose of evaluating the performance of the hydrological model and examining the limitations of remote sensing techniques used in soil moisture estimation. An image integration technique was used to integrate and analyze rainfall, soil properties, land cover, topography, and remote sensing imagery. Results indicate that the hydrological model and microwave sensors successfully picked up temporal variations of soil moisture and that the spatial soil moisture pattern may be remotely sensed with reasonable accuracy using existing algorithms.

Wood, E. F.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Sensitivity of Single-Scattering Properties to Precipitation Particle Meltwater Geometry for GPM Passive Microwave and Radar Remote Sensing Applications

The objective of the current work is to describe the microwave single-scattering properties of partially melted ice-phase precipitation particles using physically-based computational methods, taking into full account the varied geometries of the initially “dry” ice particles and the distributions of liquid water that develop during the melting process. Ultimately, the bulk properties of ensembles of these partially-melted particles will be included in “scattering tables” to support radar and combined radar-radiometer remote sensing of precipitation. A meshless Lagrangian melting procedure (snowMELT) based on smoothed-particle hydrodynamics is applied to both spherical and finely-structured ice particle models to describe the full evolution of the particles from dry ice particles to liquid drops. The melting of spherical ice particles using snowMELT is compared to an alternative continuum physics model to validate melt times and internal thermodynamics. The discrete dipole approximation is then utilized to calculate the single-scattering properties of different mixed-phase particles throughout the melting process. The sensitivities of particle single-scattering properties to thermodynamic and hydrodynamic assumptions in snowMELT are explored, and the implications for combined radar-radiometer precipitation remote sensing from GPM are discussed.

William S Olson↗
NASA NTRS1981

Microwave radiometry and hybrid precipitation measurements

It was necessary to identify the most promising measurement techniques and strategies and to understand those candidate systems in detail. The emphasis was on passive microwave remote-sensing techniques. A brief background in passive microwave and hybrid techniques for measuring precipitation, key problem areas and strategies for dealing with those problems, a precipitation measurement system, and specific recommendations are presented.

Wilheit, T. T.↗
NASA NTRS2000

BOREAS HYD-4 Areal Snow Course Data

The Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) Hydrology (HYD)-4 team focused on collecting data during the 1994 winter focused field campaign (FFCW) to improve the understanding of winter processes within the boreal forest. Knowledge of snow cover and its variability in the boreal forest is fundamental if BOREAS is to achieve its goals of understanding the processes and states involved in the exchange of energy and water. The development and validation of remote sensing algorithms will provide the means to extend the knowledge of these processes and states from the local to the regional scale. A specific thrust of the hydrology research is the development and validation of snow cover algorithms from airborne passive microwave measurements. Airborne remote sensing data (gamma, passive microwave) were acquired along a series of flight lines established in the vicinity of the BOREAS study areas. Ground snow surveys were conducted along selected sections of these aircraft flight lines. These calibration segments were typically 10-20 km in length, and ground data were collected at one to two kilometer intervals. The data are provided in tabular ASCII files. The HYD-04 areal snow course data are available from the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC). The data files are available on a CD-ROM (see document number 20010000884).

Hall, Forrest G.↗
NASA NTRS1991

The advanced microwave precipitation radiometer: A new aircraft radiometer for passive precipitation remote sensing

Past studies of passive microwave measurements of precipitating systems have yielded broad empirical relationships between hydrometeors and microwave transmission. In general, these relationships fall into two categories of passive microwave precipitation retrievals rely upon the observed effect of liquid precipitation to increase the brightness temperature of a radiometrically cold background such as an ocean surface. A scattering-based method is based upon the effect that frozen hydrometeors tend to decrease the brightness temperature of a radiometrically warm background such as land. One step toward developing quantitative brightness temperature-rain rate relationships is the recent construction of a new aircraft instrument sponsored by National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA/MSFC). This instrument is the Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR) designed and built by Georgia Tech Research Institute to fly aboard high altitude research aircraft such as the NASA ER-2. The AMPR and its accompanying data acquisition system are mounted in the Q-bay compartment of the NASA ER-2.

Hood, Robbie E.↗