CSU Project #: 5-31116
Sponsor: NOAA
Primary Investigator: Jack Dostalek
Start Date: July 1st, 2012
End Date: June 30th, 2014

• The objectives of this project, which supports the NOAA mission goals of Climate, Weather, and Water, ultimately involve validating Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MIRS) retrievals in relation to two tropical cyclone products developed at CIRA. The first product, the Multiplatform Satellite Surface Wind Analysis, uses information from 4 data sources, including microwave retrievals, to create a mid-level wind analysis using a variational approach (Knaff and DeMaria 2006). The mid-level winds are then adjusted to the surface using a single column method. The second product is a statistical intensity and wind radii estimate (Demuth et al. 2004; Demuth et al. 2006). This product uses microwave soundings to produce objective estimates of 1-min maximum sustained surface winds, minimum sea-level pressure, and the radii of 34-, 50-, and 64-kt winds in the northwest, northeast, southeast, and southwest quadrants of tropical cyclones. These two products are currently produced using microwave profiles generated from a statistical retrieval scheme over 10 years old. Intermediate validation of the MIRS retrievals will be performed by comparing them to collocated dropsondes in relation to the following: 1-Temperature 2-Relative humidity 3-Maximum Potential Intensity (MPI) of tropical cyclones (Bister and Emanuel 1998) 4-Vertical velocity produced in a simple cloud model (DeMaria 2009) This project supports the following NOAA mission goals: Weather and Water.

• Satellite Algorithm Development, Training and Education

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