Engineering Commons^™

An Assessment Of Seawinds On Quikscat Wind Retrieval, David Draper, David G. Long

Faculty Publications

The scatterometer ocean wind retrieval process produces several possible solutions or ambiguities at each point, requiring a separate ambiguity selection step to infer a unique wind vector field. An ambiguity selection error occurs when the selected wind vector is not the closest ambiguity to the true wind. The current ambiguity selection routine for SeaWinds is ad hoc, but performs well under most circumstances. Factors such as instrument noise and rain can also cause the estimated wind flow to deviate from the true wind. A quality assurance (QA) analysis is performed to assess the ambiguity selection effectiveness and noise level of …