A multi-scale study of wind fields retrieved using synthetic aperture radars and scatterometers

Abstract

Different physical phenomena could affect the wind fields retrieved using synthetic aperture radars or scatterometers. The influence of these phenomena varies with the spatial scales considered. In this paper, using multi-scale analysis, we compare wind data obtained via different sources. Scatterometer data is integrated into a blended wind product available at IFREMER. This product is the result of an optimal interpolation, based on the kriging approach, of ECMWF analysis wind fields, radiometers and scatterometers wind measurements. The blended wind fields have a spatial resolution of 0.25deg (~25 km). We use these wind fields in our analysis and compare them with wind fields retrieved using the synthetic aperture radar on-board ENVISAT with a spatial resolution of 1 km. The ability of synthetic aperture radars to retrieve wind measurements near the coast permits to evaluate the influence of some coastal effects, tidal currents for example. The study case considered in this paper is the northern coasts of the French region of Brittany. This study is undertaken under the framework of the MODENA project*.