Alsdorf, D. ., Ohio State, Byrd Polar Researc, Columbus, USA, alsdorf.1@osu.edu
Andreadis, K. ., U. Washington, Civil Engineering, Seattle, USA, kostas@hydro.washington.edu
Lettenmaier, D. ., U. Washington, Civil Engineering, Seattle, USA, dennisl@u.washington.edu
Moller, D. ., Cal Tech, JPL, Pasadena, USA, delwyn.moller@jpl.nasa.gov
Rodriguez, E. ., Cal Tech, JPL, Pasadena, USA, ernesto.rodriguez@jpl.nasa.gov
Bates, P. ., U. Bristol, Geographical Sciences, Bristol, United Kingdom, paul.bates@bristol.uk
Mognard, N. ., CNES, Toulouse, France, nelly.mognard@cnes.fr
WATER HM Participants, . ., Ohio State University, Columbus, USA, alsdorf.1@osu.edu

VIRTUAL MISSION FIRST RESULTS SUPPORTING THE WATER HM SATELLITE CONCEPT

First results demonstrate that: (1) Ensemble Kalman filtering of VM simulations recover water depth and discharge, reducing the discharge RMSE from 23.2% to 10.0% over an 84-day simulation period, relative to a simulation without assimilation. The filter also shows that an 8-day overpass frequency produces discharge relative errors of 10.0%, while 16-day and 32-day frequencies result in errors of 12.1% and 16.9%, respectively. (2) SRTM measurements of water surfaces along the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Amazon rivers, as well as smaller tributaries, show height standard deviations of 5 meters or greater (SRTM is the heritage for WATER HM). These large errors require several hundred kilometer reach lengths to estimate slope and hence discharge in the empirical Manning’s method. Nevertheless, discharge estimates are reasonable and can be within 10% of gauged values. (3) River channel widths are key for determining the capability of WATER HM to resolve flow hydraulics. Automated measurements of channels, as classified in NLCD92 (a 30m product from the USGS Land Cover Institute), show detailed coverage throughout the Ohio River Basin, including channels with annual discharge of 150 cms, draining 12,500 sqkm. (4) Conventional profiling altimetry misses 75% of all lakes in the world because there are hundreds of kilometers between orbital tracks.

http://earthsciences.osu.edu/w

Oral presentation

Presentation is given by student: No
Session #:006
Date: 03-05-2008
Time: 16:30