Roquet, Herve (Meteo-France)
Lefevre, Jean-Michel (same affiliation)
Poitevin, Joel (same affiliation)
The new active sensors (radar, altimeter, scatterometer) flying on board ERS satellite offer an unique opportunity to detect and monitor in real-tiem severe wind and wave conditions at sea. This capability is of special interest in the Mediterranean Sea, where small scale and rapidly developing phenomena are difficult to sample by the few available conventional marine observations. However, the conditions in an enclosed sea like the Mediterranean Sea, where the fetch due to the local winds is often limited, and where the frequent presence of the coast or of islands is a handicap for active sensors, make more difficult the interpretation and use of these remote sensing data than in open seas.
To that respect, the perspective of the ASCAT scatterometer, flying on board the future EUMETSAT METOP satellites is very promising, as the instrument will have a double swath, and will not be perturbated by the SAR mode.