http://www.marine.usf.edu/~sgilbert/discuss.html

DISCUSSION

In the case of Allison, it may be fairly obvious that a high sea level nearshore during this hurricane is storm surge. It is difficult to verify or denounce this idea since this is the only case where the pass approached the coast at an almost 90 degree angle within three hours of hurricane crossing. Skepticism should be practiced in this case since TOPEX/Poseidon experiences difficulty nearshore. The error is derived from the geoid and shallow water. However, the extreme anomoly at any case shouldn't be ignored

The satellites' other area of weakness is also relevant to this paper. Since the altimeter signal is greatly affected by water content in the atmosphere, the radiometer measures this and corrects for the change in travel time. However, during periods of heavy rain, the radiometer shuts down and no measurements are taken. The time scale here is only seconds. This implies that in areas of heavy rain, more NaN's would be present. This is in fact the case shown here. The heaviest rain in the anatomy of a hurricane is located in the two front quadrants relative to the forward motion of the hurricane, the heavier on the right and the less heavy on the left. In this analysis, quadrant two shows this trend with a confidence interval above 99%. Quadrant one on the other hand shows less NaN's than randomly assigned, but this may be dismissed with a confidence interval of only 94.6%. Quadrant three shows less NaN's than randomly assigned with a greater than 99% confidence interval which also coincides with theory. In most satellite pictures

of hurricanes, quadrant three has the least number of rain bands, since most convection occurs on the right side of a hurricane relative to the forward motion of the hurricane (Burpee, 1986). The number of NaN's in quadrant four is strictly due to random distribution and require no explanation pertaining to the hurricane. It is important to mention that the amount of NaN's may be related to whether the pass is ascending or descending. If the pass is descending through quadrant 2, which typically has a considerable amount of rain, by the time it reaches quadrant 4, the radiometer may be in "correction mode." In this case, the NaN's may not be due to heavy rain in the appropriate quadrant, but instead indicating recovery from rains in a different quadrant.

TITLE PAGE

INTRODUCTION

METHODS

RESULTS

PLOTS

CONCLUSION