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Evaluation of High-Resolution Ocean Surface Vector Winds Measured by QuikSCAT Scatterometer in Coastal RegionsThe SeaWinds scatterometer onboard QuikSCAT covers approximately 90% of the global ocean under clear and cloudy condition in 24 h, and the standard data product has 25-km spatial resolution. Such spatial resolution is not sufficient to resolve small-scale processes, especially in coastal oceans. Based on range-compressed normalized backscatter and a modified wind retrieval algorithm, a coastal wind dataset at 12.5-km resolution was produced. Even with larger error, the high-resolution winds, in medium to high strength, would still be useful over coastal ocean. Using measurements from moored buoys from the National Buoy Data Center, the high-resolution QuikSCAT wind data are found to have similar accuracy as standard data in the open ocean. The accuracy of both high- and standard-resolution winds, particularly in wind directions, is found to degrade near shore. The increase in error is likely caused by the inadequacy of the geophysical model function/ambiguity removal scheme in addressing coastal conditions and light winds situations. The modified algorithm helps to bring the directional accuracy of the high-resolution winds to the accuracy of the standard-resolution winds in near-shore regions, particularly in the nadir and far zones across the satellite track.
Document ID
20080036110
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
External Source(s)
Authors
Tang, Wenqing
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Liu, W. Timothy
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Stiles, Bryan W.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
August 8, 2004
Publication Information
Publication: IEEE Transactions On Geoscience And Remote Sensing
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Volume: 42
Issue: 8
Subject Category
Oceanography
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
scatterometer
Coastal ocean
vector wind

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