Book Description

In tropical cyclones, a strong inverse relationship exists between the magnitude of the upper-tropospheric warm anomaly (UTWA) and minimum sea level pressure (MSLP). Uniquely poised to capture this warming aloft, the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) flown aboard current National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar-orbiting satellites is capable of observing Tropical Cyclones (TC's) worldwide. A physical/statistical MSLP estimation algorithm based on AMSU brightness temperature anomalies (dTbs) has been operating in an experimental mode at the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (UW-CIMSS) for two years. The algorithm relies on a single AMSU channel (54.9 GHz) and shows great promise as a viable TC analysis tool. However, the radiances can be susceptible to environmental variability leading to sub-sampling and errors in MSLP. The goal of this research is to improve the existing single-channel algorithm by introducing an additional channel (55.5 GHz) that seeks to capture the true magnitude of the UTWA in instances when the single channel fails. By implementing the multi-channel approach, the goal is to create an operationally viable satellite-based guidance tool to help support tropical forecast and analysis centers worldwide.