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A wind field reconstruction method for dual-polarized (vertical-vertical [VV] and vertical-horizontal [VH]) Sentinel-1 (S-1) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images collected during tropical cyclones (TCs) that does not require external information is proposed. Forty S-1 images acquired in interferometric-wide (IW) and extra-wide (EW) modes during the Satellite Hurricane Observation Campaign in 2015–2022 were collected. Stepped-frequency microwave radiometer (SFMR) observations made onboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's hurricane aircraft are available for 13 images. The geophysical model functions, namely VV-polarized C-SARMOD and cross-polarized S-1 IW/EW mode wind speed retrieval model after noise removal (S1IW.NR/S1EW.NR), were employed to invert the wind fields from the collected images. TC wind fields were reconstructed based on SAR-derived winds, enhancing TC intensity representation in the VV-polarized SAR retrievals and minimizing the error of the VH-polarized SAR retrievals at the sub-swath edge. The wind speeds retrieved from the SAR IW image were validated against the remote-sensing products from the soil moisture active passive (SMAP) radiometer, yielding a root mean squared error (RMSE) of approximately 4.3 m s−1, which is slightly smaller than the RMSE (4.4 m s−1) for the operational CyclObs wind product provided by the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER). However, the CyclObs wind product has better performance than the approach proposed in this paper for the S-1 EW mode. Moreover, the RMSE of the wind speed between SAR-derived wind speed obtained using the proposed approach and the CyclObs wind product is within 3 m s−1 in all flow directions clockwise relative to north centered on the TC's eye. This study provides an alternative method for TC wind retrieval from dual-polarized S-1 images without suffering saturation problem and external information; however, the pattern of the wind field around the TC's eye needs to be further improved, especially at the head and back of the TC's eye. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to include rain effects in wind field retrieval from C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery collected under tropical cyclone conditions. An effective and operationally attractive approach to detect rain cells in SAR imagery is proposed and verified using four Sentinel-1 (S-1) SAR images collected in dual-polarized (vertical-vertical (VV) and vertical-horizontal (VH)) interferometric-wide swath imaging mode during the Satellite Hurricane Observation Campaign. SAR images were collocated with ancillary observations that include sea surface wind and rain rate from the Stepped-Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR) on board of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration aircraft. The winds are inverted from VV- and VH-polarized S-1 image using the CMOD5.N and S1IW.NR geophysical model functions (GMFs), respectively. Location and radius of cyclone's eye, together with the TC central pressure, are calculated from the VV-polarized SAR-derived wind and a parametric model. A cost function is proposed that consists of the difference between the measured VV-polarized SAR normalized radar cross section (NRCS) and the NRCS predicted using CMOD5.N forced with the wind speed retrieved by the VH-polarized SAR images using S1IW.NR GMF and the wind direction retrieved from the patterns visible in the SAR image. This cost function is related to the SFMR rain rate. Experimental results show that the difference between measured and predicted NRCS values range from 0.5 dB to 5 dB within a distance of 100 km from the cyclone's eye, while the difference increases spanning from 3 dB to 6 dB for distances larger than 100 km. Following this rationale, first the rain bands are extracted from SAR imagery and, then, the composite wind fields are reconstructed by replacing: (1) dual-polarized SAR-derived winds over the rain-free regions; (2) winds simulated using the radial-vortex model over the rain-affected regions. The validation of the composite wind speed against SFMR winds yields a <2 m s−1 and >0.7 correlation (COR) at all flow directions up to retrieval speeds of 70 m s−1. This result outperforms the winds estimated using the VH-polarized S1IW.NR GMF, which call for high error accuracy, such as about 4 m s−1 with a 0.45 COR ranged from 330° to 360°. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]