Land Imaging with Reconstructed High-Resolution Seasat-A Scatterometer Data an Amazon Experiment

Abstract

Satellite wind scatterometers are microwave radars designed to measure near-surface wind speed and direction over the oceans. This was the primary mission for the Seasat-A Scatterometer (SASS), which acquired 14.6 Ghz data over 50 km resolution cells during its three month mission in 1978. However, an image reconstruction technique utilizing overlap in resolution cells from successive satellite orbits can improve that spatial resolution to 5 km over land. An experiment conducted on a reconstructed image of central South America illustrates the potential of this imagery for discriminating between tropical forest, woodland, and tropical grass-shrubland. The potential for deriving geophysical information from reconstructed scatterometer imagery of the earth's surface is discussed.