High resolution wind retrieval from SeaWinds

Abstract

SeaWinds is a Ku-band pencil-beam scatterometer launched in 1999 on the QuikSCAT mission. It is designed to make nominally 25 km resolution observations of vector winds over the ocean. However, by taking advantage of resolution enhancement and its dense sampling characteristics, the wind can be retrieved at much higher resolution, albeit with greater noise. Winds with resolutions as fine as 2.5-5 km can be retrieved. Such wind data can support a variety of applications including hurricane monitoring and studying submesoscale wind phenomenology. While validation of this high resolution wind measurement capability is in progress, initial results are very encouraging.