Comparison of Synthetic Aperture Radar–Derived Wind Speeds with Buoy Wind Speeds along the Mountainous Alaskan Coast

Satellite-borne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) offers the potential for remotely sensing surface wind speed both over the open sea and in close proximity to the coast. The resolution improvement of SAR over scatterometers is of particular advantage near coasts. Thus, there is a need to verify the performance of SAR wind speed retrieval in coastal environments adjacent to very complex terrain and subject to strong synoptic forcing. Mountainous coasts present a challenge because the wind direction values required for SAR wind speed retrieval algorithms cannot be obtained from global model analyses with as much accuracy there as over the open ocean or adjacent to gentle coasts where most previous SAR accuracy studies have been conducted. The performance of SAR wind speed retrieval in this challenging environment is tested using a 7-yr dataset from the mountainous coast of the Gulf of Alaska. SAR-derived wind speeds are compared with direct measurements from three U.S. Navy Oceanographic Meteorologic...