Meteo Colloquium: Remote Sensing with the CYGNSS Constellation

Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflectometry (GNSS-R) is a remote sensing technique that uses Earth-reflected navigation signals opportunistically for science applications. NASA’s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) constellation of eight GNSS-R microsatellites have been orbiting and observing the Earth’s tropics since December 2016. CYGNSS provides rapid revisit, high resolution, near-surface wind speed data over the ocean, which are uninhibited by rain contamination. The CYGNSS mission is motivated and designed to better observe tropical cyclone (TC) processes, but the data are also useful for other applications, including surface hydrology. In this talk, I will provide an overview of the CYGNSS mission, and show how we are utilizing the data for two different science applications: 1) characterizing the TC wind field and 2) mapping wetland extent. Mary Morris, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab