Thomas Meissner

Senior Research Scientist

Office: 707-545-2904 x22

Fax: 707-545-2906

meissner@remss.com

Research Interests

  • Calibration and validation of space-borne passive microwave radiometers (Aquarius, WindSat, GMI, SSM/I, SSMIS, AMSR, CMIS).
  • Development of radiative transfer models for passive microwave radiation.
  • Development and validation of algorithms for ocean and atmospheric products from space-borne passive microwave radiometers: sea surface salinity, sea surface vector wind, sea surface temperature, water vapor, liquid cloud water.

 Professional Service

  • Standing reviewer for the National Research Council's Committee on Radio Frequencies (CORF) since 2006.
  • Serving as peer referee for several professional journals (IEEE TGRS and JSTARS, Radio Science, Journal of Geophysical Research, Geophysical Research Letters, Monthly Weather Review).

Professional Experience

  • 1998 - present: Research Physicist, Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, California.
  • 1992 - 1998: Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Washington, University of South Carolina and Carnegie Mellon University.

Education

  • 1991: PhD (Dr. rer. nat.), magna cum laude, Theoretical Physics, from the University of Bochum, Germany.
    • Dissertation: Effective Chiral Quark Model of the Nucleon. Thesis Advisor: Prof. Dr. Klaus Goeke.
  • 1987: M.S., Physics, from the University of Bonn, Germany.
  • 1983: B.S., Physics, from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany.

Honors and Awards

  • 2013: Senior Member of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society.
  • 2013: IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing Prize Paper Award for the paper describing the ocean emissivity model (together with Frank Wentz).
  • 2013: NASA Group Achievement Award as member of the Aquarius Launch, Early Orbit Operations and Commissioning Team.
  • 1992: Feodor-Lynen Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation at the Institute for Nuclear Theory of the University of Washington.
  • 1982: Scholarship Awards from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (German Scholarship Foundation) for undergraduate and graduate studies.

Affliations

  • IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society.
  • American Physical Society (APS).
  • American Meteorological Society (AMS).
  • American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Publications in Peer Refereed Journals

  1. Meissner, T, F.J. Wentz, and D.M. Le Vine, The Salinity Retrieval Algorithms for the NASA Aquarius Version 5 and SMAP Version 3 Releases, Remote Sensing, 10, 1121, doi:10.3390/rs10071121, 2018.
  2. Meissner, T., L. Ricciardulli, and F. Wentz,  Capability of the SMAP Mission to Measure Ocean Surface Winds in Storms, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 98(8), 1660-1677, doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0052.1, 2017.
  3. Boutin, J., Y. Chao, W. Asher, T. Delcroix, R. Drucker, K. Drushka, N. Kolodziejczyk, T. Lee, N. Reul, G. Reverdin, J. Schanze, A. Soloviev, L. Yu, J. Anderson, L. Brucker, E. Dinnat, A. Santos-Garcia, W. Jones, C. Maes, T. Meissner, W. Tang, N. Vinogradova, and B. Ward, Satellite and In Situ Salinity: Understanding Near-Surface Stratification and Subfootprint Variability. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 97, 1391–1407, doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00032.1, 2016.
  4. Meissner, T., F. Wentz, J. Scott, and J. Vasquez-Cuervo, Sensitivity of Ocean Surface Salinity Measurements from Spaceborne L-Band Radiometers to Ancillary Sea Surface Temperature, IEEE TGRS, vol. 54(12), pp 7105 - 7111,, doi:10.1109/TGRS.2016.2596100, 2016.
  5. Wentz, F., and T. Meissner, Atmospheric Absorption Model for Dry Air and Water Vapor at Microwave Frequencies below 100 GHz Derived from Spaceborne Radiometer Observations, Radio Sci., 51, doi:10.1002/2015RS005858, 2016.
  6. LeVine, D., E. Dinnat, T. Meissner, S. Yueh, F. Wentz, S. Torrusio, and G. Lagerloef, Status of Aquarius/SAC-D and Aquarius Salinity Retrievals. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens., 8(12), 5401-5415, doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2015.2427159 2015.    
  7. Meissner, T., F. Wentz, and L. Ricciardulli, The emission and scattering of L-band microwave radiation from rough ocean surfaces and wind speed measurements from Aquarius, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, vol. 119, doi:10.1002/2014JC009837, 2014.  
  8. Meissner, T., and F. Wentz, The emissivity of the ocean surface between 6 - 90 GHz over a large range of wind speeds and Earth incidence angles, IEEE TGRS, vol. 50(8), pp 3004, 2012.
  9. Gentemann, G., T. Meissner, and F. Wentz, Accuracy of satellite sea surface temperatures at 7 and 11 GHz, IEEE TGRS, vol. 48(3), pp 1009, 2010.
  10. Meissner, T., and F. Wentz, Wind vector retrievals under rain with passive satellite microwave radiometers, IEEE TGRS, vol. 47(9), pp 3065, 2009. 
  11. Meissner, T., and F. Wentz, Polarization Rotation and the Third Stokes Parameter: The Effects of spacecraft attitude and Faraday rotation, IEEE TGRS, vol. 44(3), pp 506, 2006. 
  12. Purdy, W., P. Gaiser, G. Poe E. Uliana, T. Meissner, and F. Wentz, Geolocation and pointing accuracy analysis for the WindSat sensor, IEEE TGRS, vol. 44(3), pp 496-505, 2006.
  13. Meissner, T., and F. Wentz, The complex dielectric constant of pure and sea water from microwave satellite observations, IEEE TGRS, vol. 42(9), pp 1836, 2004. 
  14. Meissner, T., and F. Wentz, A radiative transfer model function for 85.5 GHz SSM/I ocean brightness temperatures,  Radio Science, vol. 38(4), pp 8066, 2003. 
  15. Meissner, T., and F. Wentz, An updated analysis of the ocean surface wind direction signal in passive microwave brightness temperatures, IEEE TGRS, vol. 40(6), pp 1230, 2002.
  16. Meissner, T., D. Smith and F. Wentz, A 10-year intercomparison between collocated SSM/I oceanic surface wind speed retrievals and global analyses, JGR, C6, pp 11731, 2001.

 Oral Presentations and Conference Proceedings

  1. Meissner, T., L. Ricciardulli, and F. Wentz, Ocean Vector Winds in Storms from the SMAP L-band Radiometer, talk given at the  97th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, January 24, Seattle, USA. 
  2. Meissner, T., L. Ricciardulli, and F. Wentz, Ocean Vector, Winds in Storms from the SMAP L-band Radiometer, Proceedings for the 2016 EUMETSAT Meteorological Satellite Conference, 26-30 September 2016, Darmstadt, Germany.  
  3. Meissner, T.,F. Wentz, G. Lagerloef, and D. LeVine, Ocean Surface Salinity from SMAP: Continuing the Legacy of Aquarius, Conference on Salinity and Freshwater Changes in the Ocean, Ocotber 12 - 15, 2015, Hamburg, Germany.
  4. Meissner, T., F. Wentz, G. Lagerloef, D. LeVine, and T. Lee, Estimate of Uncertainties in the Aquarius Salinity Retrievals, talk given at IGARSS 2015, Milan, Italy.
  5. Meissner, T., F. Wentz, J. Scott, and K. Hilburn, Upper Ocean Salinity Stratification and Rain Freshening in the Tropics Observed From Aquarius, talk given at IGARSS 2014, Quebec City, Canada, July 2014. 
  6. Meissner, T., F. Wentz, L. Ricciardulli, K. Hilburn, and J. Scott, The Aquarius Salinity Retrieval Algorithm: Recent Progress and Remaining Challenges, talk given at the 13th Specialist Meeting on Microwave Radiometry and Remote Sensing of the Environment, Pasadena, CA, March 2014. 
  7. Meissner, T., et al., The Aquarius Salinity Retrieval Algorithm, invited talk given at IGARSS 2012, Munich, Germany, DOI 10.1109/IGARSS.2012.6351557.
  8. Meissner, T., et al., The Aquarius Salinity Retrieval Algorithm, invited talk given at the 12th Specialist Meeting on Microwave Radiometry and Remote Sensing of the Environment, Rome, Italy, 2012, 
    DOI 10.1109/MicroRad.2012.6185227.
  9. Meissner, T., L. Ricciardulli and F. Wentz,  All Weather Wind Vector Measurements from Intercalibrated Active and Passive Microwave Satellite Sensors, invited talk given at IGARSS 2011, Vancouver, Canada, DOI 10.1109/IGARSS.2011.6049354.
  10. Meissner, T.,  and F. Wentz,  Intercalibration of AMSR-E and WindSat brightness temperature measurements over land scenes, talk given at IGARSS 2010, Honolulu, HI, DOI 10.1109/IGARSS.2010.5649513.
  11. Meissner, T., and F. Wentz, Ocean Retrievals for WindSat: Radiative Transfer Model, Algorithm, Validation, talk given at the 9th Specialist Meeting on Microwave Radiometry and Remote Sensing Applications, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2006, IEEE Catalog no. 06EX1174C, DOI 10.1109/MICRAD.2006.1677074.

Poster Presentations

  1. Meissner, T., F. Wentz, and T. Lee, Recent Advances in the Salinity Retrieval Algorithms for Aquarius and SMAP, Poster at AGU 2016, San Francisco, USA.
  2. Meissner, T., F. Wentz, J. Scott, and T. Lee, Ocean Surface Salinity and Wind Speeds from the SMAP Sensor, Ocean Science Meeting, 2016, New Orleans, Paper #PO44E-3212. 
  3. Meissner, T., F. Wentz, K. Hilburn, and J, Scott, Upper Ocean Salinity Stratification and Rain Induced Freshwater Lensing in the Tropics Observed from Aquarius, EGU 2014 General Assembly, EGU2014-4594.

Technical Reports

  1. Meissner, T., and F. Wentz, RSS SMAP Salinity: Version 2 Validated Release. Release Notes, Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD), Validation, Data Format Specification, RSS Technical Report 091316, September 2016.
  2. Meissner, T., Performance Degradation and Q/C Flagging of Aquarius L2 Salinity Retrievals, report number 031814, Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, CA, 2014. 
  3. Meissner T., F. Wentz, D. LeVine, and J. Scott, Aquarius Salinity Retrieval Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD), Addendum 3, report number 060414, Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, CA, 2014.
  4. Wentz, F., D. LeVine, T. Meissner, and J. Piepmeier, Aquarius Salinity Retrieval Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD), report number 082912, Addendum 1, Addendum 2, Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, CA, 2012, 2013. 
  5. Meissner, T., F. Wentz and D. Draper, GMI Calibration Algorithm and Analysis Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD) Version G, report number 041912, Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, CA, 2012.
  6. Wentz, F., and T. Meissner, AMSR Ocean Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (Version 2), RSS Tech. Proposal 121599A-1, Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, CA, December 1999, revised 2000.
  7. Wentz, F., and T. Meissner, AMSR Ocean Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document Supplement-1, RSS Tech. Rpt. 051707, Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, CA, May 2007.