Wind field retrieval from SAR compared with scatterometer wind field during ERS Tandem phase

Several recent works [such as Vachon et al. 1996, Scoon et al. 1996 and Korsbakken et al. 1997] report promising results when wind retrieval models developed for the wind scatterometer (WSC) are applied to SAR data. The general conclusion from these works is that more validation is needed since the available in-situ material is relatively limited. A dataset from the ERS-1/2 Tandem phase allows for a new type of validation study of the wind retrieval models when applied to SAR, and validate the results towards the scatterometer derived wind field with 30 minutes lag. The orbit configuration and the wide swath of the WSC cause an overlap at latitudes greater than about 63°. In this work we discuss the major difference of two C-band models and their performance and the novel comparison of SAR and WSC wind field. In the first section we give a brief overview of the data used followed by a discussion of stationary in the wind field before the results are presented and, finally, a summary is given.