Ambiguity Removal and Product Monitoring for SeaWinds, version 1.2

This report is a technical note on the implementation of Ambiguity Removal (AR) and the product monitoring flag in the QuikSCAT Data Processor (QDP). It is written for the NWP community, specifically for users who intend to use the SeaWinds wind product for applications like data assimilation. The purpose of this document is to inform the intended user on the tests and implementation details concerning AR and product monitoring in the development of a 100km surface wind product based on SeaWinds measurements.

In chapter 1, a general introduction is given on the SeaWinds instrument describing the instrument details that are assumed known to the reader in the subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 gives a theoretical description of variational ambiguity removal. Chapter 3 describes the specification of the background error covariance matrix. Chapter 4 deals with Variational Quality Control needed to filter out observations that contain gross errors. Chapter 5 reports on the development of a product monitoring flag. Finally chapter 6 gives a summary and outlook. Chapter 6 summarizes the references used throughout this report.