Targeting Near-Coastal Regions for Scatterometer Wind Retrieval Processing

Microwave scatterometers, which use radar backscatter measurements from satellites to infer wind vectors near the ocean's surface, have the ability to monitor global wind speeds at high resolutions. Such data is used for weather forecasting and climate research. However, scatterometer observations over the ocean can be contaminated by land proximity. Current methods do not use measurements within 30 km of the coast (about 10.6 million square kilometers worldwide) in the data set. This data loss can be ameliorated by a recently developed algorithm that can measure winds within 5 km of the coast. Areas near land can be systematically targeted for special processing using information from L1B and L2B files, providing valuable near-coastal wind data. The effectiveness of the targeting method on a global scale is demonstrated with QuikSCAT winds.