Offshore wind mapping using synthetic aperture radar and meteorological model data

We introduce an iterative maximum aposteriori probability (MAP) method for combining meteorological model output with synthetic aperture radar for offshore wind field estimation. The MAP approach is demonstrated for 40 ENVISAT ASAR scenes collected for 2004-2006 over the UK Irish Sea. The CMOD4 and CMOD5 geophysical model functions are compared and retrievals using MAP and a simpler directon based windspeed algorithm are validated against in situ mast observations. In particular the CMOD5 MAP algorithm shows promising results showing a RMSE of 2.09 ms^-1 .