A numerical experiment in supplementing tropical analyses with satellite pictures.

Abstract

Satellite pictures can frequently be interpreted as revealing areas of upward motion associated with low tropospheric convergence, and areas of circulation, related to vorticity, in addition to the indication of streamlines. This experiment utilizes an IBM 7090 computer program to improve upon the horizontal velocity field, initially estimated from cIoud pictures by estimating also the divergence and vorticity pattern from the pictures. The success of this first test case is demonstrated by computing the winds independently, by this method and comparing the results with wind data withheld from the initial analysis. This technique therefore may provide a direct method of interpreting picture data that is not used in the estimation of streamlines, thus extracting additional information from satellite data. Continuing work on this technique will produce a catalogue of vorticity-divergence patterns associated with good-data cases, which can then be used to analyze similar situations ill data sparse areas.