Seawater permittivity model function with new L-band seawater measurements at 33psu

Abstract

Seawater salinity measurements are currently being made at L-band (1.413 Ghz) by NASA's Aquarius instrument (on the Aquarius/SAC-D observatory). The goal of Aquarius mission is to measure the salinity of seawater to an accuracy on the order of 0.2 psu; this requires a model function of seawater permittivity with a high accuracy. Since 2011, the George Washington University (GW) has employed a cavity technique to determine the complex permittivity of seawater at 1.413 GHz. In this paper, a new seawater dielectric model function is introduced including the latest permittivity data for seawater with salinity 33 psu. Finally, the validation of the end-effect, measurement variance and data fitting will be discussed.