This award is in support of a one-year visit by Dr. David A. Short, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to the Communications Research Laboratory (CRL), Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Short will collaborate with Dr. Kenji Nakamura and other scientists at CRL on studies related to microwave remote sensing of the earth's environment from satellite-borne instruments. In particular, Dr. Short will work with CRL researchers in examining fundamental issues regarding the measurement of surface rainfall from space. Both active (using radar) and passive (using microwave remote sensing) systems are employed for this purpose. An airborne meteorological radar developed at CRL (prototype of a satellite- borne instrument) is currently being flown on a NASA aircraft in a joint experiment. Dr. Short will cooperate with CRL personnel in developing and testing procedures that utilize their radar rainrate- measurement techniques in an effort to improve the accuracy of passive microwave rainrate measurements. An important goal of this research is to understand better the strengths and weaknesses of both techniques, so that they may be used in complementary ways in future space missions. The work can be expected to contribute substantially to algorithm development and instrument definition of proposed future observing systems such as the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (a joint U.S.-Japan project) and the Earth Observing System Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer.
