A new approach to estimation of global air‐sea gas transfer velocity fields using dual‐frequency altimeter backscatter

摘要: [1] A new approach to estimating air-sea gas transfer velocities based on normalized backscatter from the dual-frequency TOPEX and Jason-1 altimeters is described. The differential scattering of Ku-band (13.6 GHz) C-band (5.3 microwave pulses used isolate contribution small-scale waves mean square slope transfer. Mean derived for nominal wave number range 40–100 rad m−1 by differencing estimates computed in each band, using a simple geometric optics model. Model parameters calculating differenced over this are optimized situ optical measurements. An empirical relation between velocity slope, also field measurements, then derive velocities. Initial results demonstrate that calculated exhibit magnitudes dynamic which generally consistent with existing algorithm construct monthly global maps illustrate seasonal variations 1-year period. measurement precision estimated >106 duplicate observations sea surface orbiting tandem better than 10%. overall uncertainty method ±30%. long-term global, area-weighted, Schmidt corrected, 13.7 ± 4.1 cm h−1. approach, roughness, represents potential alternative commonly parameterizations wind speed.