Abstract
Nearshore wind speeds retrieved by WindSat are validated by a comparison with the moored buoy observations near the U.S. west and east coasts. A 30 min and 25 km collection window is used for the WindSat wind data and buoy measurements from January 2004 to December 2014. Comparisons show that the overall root-mean-square error is better than 1.44 m/s near the U.S. coasts, and the result for the east coast is better than that for the west coast. The retrieval accuracy of the descending portions is slightly better than that of the ascending portions. Most buoy-to-buoy variations are not significantly correlated with the coastal topography, the longitude and the distance from the shore or satellite-buoy separation distance. In addition, comparisons between a polarimetric microwave radiometer and a microwave scatterometer are accomplished with the nearshore buoy observations from 2007 to 2008. The WindSat-derived winds tend to be lower than the buoy observations near the U.S. coasts. In contrast, the QuikSCAT-derived winds tend to be higher than the buoy observations. Overall, the retrieval accuracy of WindSat is slightly better than that of QuikSCAT, and these satellite-derived winds are sufficiently accurate for scientific studies.
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Foundation item: The National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 41105012 and 41576171.
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Zhang, L., Shi, H., Yu, H. et al. WindSat satellite comparisons with nearshore buoy wind data near the U.S. west and east coasts. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 35, 50–58 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-016-0905-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-016-0905-y