As the focus of Navy attention shifts to littoral regions, higher resolution and re-locatable nested models have been developed to improve shallow-water operations. One of the scientific and technical challenges is to determine how much detail and accuracy in ocean wind data is needed to meet operational requirements. A series of experiments, each one of a 14-day duration, are performed to evaluate the sensitivity of a regional ocean model to low (NOGAPS) versus high-resolution (COAMPS) wind forcing including scatterometer data insertion into COAMPS using synthetic QuikSCAT observations. Atmospheric model wind stress/wind stress curl and PWC surface and subsurface current/temperature model results are compared and analyzed. The results show that there is significant sensitivity in sea surface current and wind stress variability to the choice of atmospheric model grid resolution and the insertion of high-resolution satellite data. In coastal areas, increasing atmospheric model resolution and/or the introduction of satellite winds produces a finer depiction of the variability observed near capes and promontories. Within ~20-50 km of the coast, atmospheric model wind stress data were in good agreement with buoy observations while ocean model current data showed significant errors.