Abstract:
Spaceborne scatterometers are important sensors for measuring global ocean surface wind fields. However, their coarse spatial resolution and saturation of co-polarized backscatter signals under extreme weather limit their application in typhoon center and intensity estimation. Based on 92 typhoon ocean surface wind samples measured by the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) in the Northwest Pacific Ocean in 2023, this paper develops a computational model (ASCAT-TICE) for typhoon intensity and center estimation. This model is validated using the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) dataset. The results show that the ASCAT original ocean surface winds significantly underestimate typhoon intensities, with a bias of 14.73 m s
−1 compared with IBTrACS reports. However, the corrected ASCAT ocean winds outperform IBTrACS data in typhoon intensity estimation, with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 7.89 m s
−1 and a bias of 3.85 m s
−1. In terms of typhoon center location, our method effectively estimates typhoon center locations from ASCAT’s coarse-resolution ocean wind products, with an RMSE of 0.41° in longitude and 0.45° in latitude. The results demonstrate that typhoon center estimation accuracy is better than that of two ASCAT grid cells. This study proves the capability of ASCAT scatterometry for typhoon center and intensity estimation, significantly enhancing the use of spaceborne scatterometer wind data in typhoon measurements and forecasting operations. Our model also provides technical support for other operational scatterometers in typhoon measurements.