Validation of Sea Surface Wind Speeds from Satellite Altimeters and Relation to Sea State Bias - Focus on Wind Measurements at Ieodo, Marado, Oeyeondo Stations

The sea surface wind field has long been obtained from satellite scatterometers or passive microwave radiometers. However, the importance of satellite altimeter-derived wind speed has seldom been addressed because of the outstanding capability of the scatterometers. Satellite altimeter requires the accurate wind speed data, measured simultaneously with sea surface height observations, to enhance the accuracy of sea surface height through the correction of sea state bias. This study validates the wind speeds from the satellite altimeters (GFO, Jason-1, Envisat, Jason-2, Cryosat-2, SARAL) and analyzes characteristics of errors. In total, 1504 matchup points were produced using the wind speed data of Ieodo Ocean Research Station (TORS) and of Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) buoys at Marado and Oeyeondo stations for 10 years from December 2007 to May 2016. The altimeter wind speed showed a root mean square error (RMSE) of about 1.59 m s(-1) and a negative bias of -0.35 m s(-1) with respect to the in-situ wind speed. Altimeter wind speeds showed characteristic biases that they were higher (lower) than in-situ wind speeds at low (high) wind speed ranges. Some tendency was found that the difference between the maximum and minimum value gradually increased with distance from the buoy stations. For the improvement of the accuracy of altimeter wind speed, an equation for correction was derived based on the characteristics of errors. In addition, the significance of altimeter wind speed on the estimation of sea surface height was addressed by presenting the effect of the corrected wind speeds on the sea state bias values of Jason-1.