Storm Surge Hindcasting Studies Using CYGNSS

Tropical cyclones pose a unique risk to life and property given their ability to generate wind driven waves and significant coastal storm surge in which substantial levels of water are driven ashore. This motivates studying storm surge dynamics both as part of hindcasting and forecasting studies using tools like ADCIRC that offer the opportunity of simulating surge properties and correlating those with specific storm structure features. Accurate storm surge modelling however is inherently limited by the accuracy of the input meteorological wind fields and is further complicated by the fact that tropical cyclones span areas that can be several hundred kilometers in size thereby limiting the monitoring capabilities of direct flight reconnaissance or in-situ data.

Alternatively, spaceborne sensors like NASA's CYGNSS mission are well suited to address storm monitoring needs given their global coverage. In the case of CYGNSS, this is further aided by a wide range of properties unique to its opportunistic GNSS-R mode of remote sensing.

This presentation will provide an overview of recent advances made towards incorporating parametric wind fields, derived from CYGNSS data and obtained using a previously reported 'matched filter' framework, as part of ADCIRC hindcasting storm surge simulations. The presentation will include an overview of maximum wind retrieval results for 40 storms observed by CYGNSS, and will review how the results obtained compare to reference Best Track estimates. Particular emphasis will be placed on the subsequent use of CYGNSS-derived wind fields in ADCIRC simulations and comparisons of CYGNSS based surge results relative to in situ gauge data. Comparisons with results based on the use of both model reanalysis wind estimates and meteorological wind fields derived from more traditional spaceborne platforms will also be reported.