The accuracy of high resolution winds from QuikSCAT

Author

Jelenak, Zorana ; Connor, Laurence N. ; Chang, Paul S.

Author_Institution

NOAA/NESDIS Office of Res. & Applications, Camp Springs, MD, USA

Volume

2

fYear

2002

fDate

2002

Firstpage

732

Abstract

The accuracy of the high resolution QuikSCAT wind product was quantified using spatially and temporally collocated 10 m equivalent neutral stability winds, calculated from selected NOAA NDBC buoy measurements. Only buoys that had sample correlation higher than 1.5 were used in this validation, a total of 5704 records. The validation followed the Freilich nonlinear statistical analysis approach. This analysis of the collocated buoy-scatterometer data set yielded the following statistics for wind speed: deterministic offset -0.25 m/s; linear gain 1.02; standard deviation of component errors 1.9 m/s; and RMS error 2.2 m/s. Wind direction errors were more pronounced for lighter winds, typically for winds up to 5 m/s. The RMS directional error for buoy-QuikSCAT pairs for which Δθ<90° is 20.6°.

Keywords

atmospheric techniques; meteorological radar; remote sensing by radar; spaceborne radar; wind; 13.4 GHz; Freilich nonlinear statistical analysis; QuikSCAT; SHF; SeaWinds; accuracy; deterministic offset; error; high resolution; linear gain; marine atmosphere; measurement technique; radar remote sensing; radar scatterometry; spaceborne radar; standard deviation; statistics; validation; wind; wind direction; wind speed; Extraterrestrial measurements; Geophysical measurements; Microwave measurements; Ocean temperature; Power measurement; Pulse measurements; Radar measurements; Sea measurements; Sea surface; Wind forecasting;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2002. IGARSS '02. 2002 IEEE International

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7536-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2002.1025653

Filename

1025653