Maryland Offshore Wind Climatology with Application to Wind Power Generation

摘要

The last 15 years have witnessed the maturation of the use of spaceborne microwave remote sensing to measure near surface marine winds. The QuikSCAT satellite's scatterometer, SeaWinds, recently ceased operation after it provided wind vector data for ten years, far more than its projected three-year lifetime. Presently, the Europeans are operating a scatterometer, ASCAT. These devices were designed for open-ocean wind retrievals with 1000 to 2000 km swaths with 12.5 to 25 km resolution. These instruments are an important contribution to weather forecasting, but have limited ability in coastal regions.