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Science Meetings

First Results and Validation of Marine Surface Wind Speed Obtained from SAC-D/Aquarius MWR
Tauro, C.B., Hezain, Y., Etala, P., Echevarria, P., Jacob, M.M., and Jones, L. (04-Dec-12)

MWR (MicroWave Radiometer) is a radiometer on board SAC-D/Aquarius satellite, launched in June 2011. The SAC-D/Aquarius science mission was developed jointly by the Nacional Space Agency of Argentina (CONAE, Comisin Nacional de Actividades Espaciales) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of USA (NASA), that focuses on understanding the interaction between the global water cycle, ocean circulation and climate by measuring sea surface salinity. MWR is a three channel push broom, Dicke radiometer, that has 16 beams, 8 forward-looking at 36.5 GHz (in vertical and horizontal polarization) and 8 aft-looking at 23.8 GHz (in horizontal polarization), with a swath of approximately 380 Km. The beams are arranged to have two incidence angles, one of 52 (odd beams) and one of 58 (even beams) for both forward and aft-looks. Since recently, CONAE with collaboration of CFRSL (Central Florida Remote Sensing Laboratory), are generating geophysical parameters, all over the sea surface, using brightness temperature measurements from MWR. These parameters include columnar water vapor, wind speed, sea ice concentration and rain rate, which are ancillary data for the Aquarius salinity measurements.