Wind Bias from Sub-optimal Estimation Due to Geophysical Modeling Error - Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium Proceedings, 1998. IGARSS '98. 1998 IEEE International

Inherent in all empirical estimates of the geophysical model function (which relates the wind t o the normalized radar cross section, NRCS, of the ocean surface) is uncertainty caused by parameters not included in the empirical model. This can be thought of as variability in the NRCS for given wind conditions. W h e n the estimated variability is included in the max imum likelihood wind retrieval algorithm, complicated interdependencies arise between the estimated wind and the estimated variability. Techniques fo r simplifying these interdependencies results in sub-optimal wind estimates. The model function variability can be ignored, or the log-variance t e rm in the maximum likelihood estimation could be eliminated. In this paper, we consider the impact of these suggestions o n NSCAT compass simulations. As expected, each method results in biased wind estimates. However, the biases are small, particularly when compared t o the added complexity of the f i l l solution.