NOAA operational SAR sea surface wind products

SAR-derived wind measurements are in the process of being implemented for operational production within NOAA´s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. For C-band ENVISAT and RADARSAT-1/2 data, the CMOD5 algorithm is being used; for ALOS data, a special L-band wind algorithm is employed. Comparisons of both C-band and L-band winds with ASCAT scatterometer wind measurements show biases of 0.58 m/s or less and standard deviations of 1.31 m/s or less. SAR wind vectors will be stored in a NetCDF4-formatted file and made available in a number of product formats via the NOAA CoastWatch program.