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Comparison of sea surface wind field measured by HY-2A scatterometer and WindSat in global oceans

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Abstract

In this study, we present a comprehensive comparison of the sea surface wind field measured by scatterometer (Ku-band scatterometer) aboard the Chinese HY-2A satellite and the full-polarimetric radiometer WindSat aboard the Coriolis satellite. The two datasets cover a four-year period from October 2011 to September 2015 in the global oceans. For the sea surface wind speed, the statistical comparison indicates good agreement between the HY-2A scatterometer and WindSat with a bias of nearly 0 m/s and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.13 m/s. For the sea surface wind direction, a bias of 1.41° and an RMSE of 20.39° were achieved after excluding the data collocated with opposing directions. Furthermore, discrepancies in sea surface wind speed measured by the two sensors in the global oceans were investigated. It is found that the larger differences mainly appear in the westerlies in the both hemispheres. Both the bias and RMSE show latitude dependence, i.e., they have significant latitudinal fl uctuations.

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Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the NSOAS (National Satellite Ocean Application Service, China) for providing us with the HY-2A SCAT data. WindSat data are produced by Remote Sensing Systems and sponsored by the NASA Earth Science MEASURES DISCOVER Project and the NASA Earth Science Physical Oceanography Program. RSS WindSat data are available at www.remss.com.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Digital Earth Science, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100094, China

    Minwei Zheng, Xiao-Ming Li & Jin Sha

  2. Laboratory for Regional Oceanography and Numerical Modeling, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266235, China

    Xiao-Ming Li

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Minwei Zheng

  4. Hainan Key Laboratory of Earth Observation, Sanya, 572029, China

    Xiao-Ming Li

Authors
  1. Minwei Zheng
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  2. Xiao-Ming Li
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  3. Jin Sha
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Correspondence to Xiao-Ming Li.

Additional information

Supported by the Hainan Provincial Department of Science and Technology (No. ZDKJ2016015), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41406198), and the Special Project of Chinese High- Resolution Earth Observation System (No. 41-Y20A14-9001-15/16)

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Zheng, M., Li, XM. & Sha, J. Comparison of sea surface wind field measured by HY-2A scatterometer and WindSat in global oceans. J. Ocean. Limnol. 37, 38–46 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-019-7347-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-019-7347-2

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