HIGH RESOLUTION MARINE SURFACE WIND RETRIEVAL USING SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR*

摘要

A variational approach to wind retrieval is investigated using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) acquisitions by Radarsat-1 and high-resolution numerical wind fields. The European Remote Sensing (ERS) C-Band model (CMOD) and a polarization ratio based on Vachon and Dobson (2000) are applied to acquisitions along coastal regions of eastern and western North America. An appropriate error estimate (or weighting) of radar cross section, relative to that of numerical model winds, is ob- tained by comparing retrieved winds to ships of opportunity and buoys. The in situ observation errors are neglected (that is, ship and buoy obs are taken as the best reference). Improvements of the retrieved winds over the model winds are quantified.