88th Annual Meeting (20-24 January 2008)

Wednesday, 23 January 2008: 4:15 PM
Significant wave height in the Gulf of Mexico: validation of Jason-1 measurement against buoy data
204 (Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Mitsuko Korobkin, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA; and E. D'Sa
Poster PDF (163.6 kB)
The significant wave height (SWHT) data from Jason-1 satellite over the duration of 183 cycles (January 2002 to December 2006) are compared with the in situ measurements at 5 offshore buoys in the Gulf of Mexico. The Jason-1 data are collocated with the buoys and averaged inside the radius of 14 - 139 km, depending on the distance between a buoy and Jason-1 paths. The coinciding Buoy data are selected within the ± 30-minute time window. The simultaneous data record of SWHT by Jason-1 and the buoys covered a range of 0 to 6 meters in the 4-year period. We find that the correlations between the buoy and the Jason-1 data are very good in general, with the rms difference of 13 - 44 centimeters. On average, the Jason-1 estimates were lower than the Buoy measurements by 4 %.

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