A wind direction extension based algorithm for scatterometer wind vector retrieval

According to the lower efficiency and larger wind direction errors in the nadir region of the swath, a new combined wind retrieval algorithm is proposed for conically scanning scatterometer in this paper. The presented algorithm has the dual advantages of both higher efficiency and higher wind direction retrieval accuracy by combining the wind speed standard deviation algorithm and the wind direction interval retrieval(DIR) algorithm. It adopts wind speed standard deviation as criterion for searching possible wind vector solutions and retrieves potential wind direction interval for the first and second ambiguities based on the change rate of the wind speed standard deviation. Some SeaWinds L2A data and collocated buoy data were used to validate the algorithm. Retrieval experiments indicated that the algorithm can significantly reduce the wind direction retrieval errors in the nadir region.