MODEL-BASED ESTIMATION OF WIND FIELDS OVER THE OCEAN FROM WIND SCATTEROMETER MEASUREMENTS, .1. DEVELOPMENT OF THE WIND-FIELD MODEL

In this first of two papers, we develop a parametric model for near-surface mesoscale wind fields suitable for use in a model-based approach (described in Part II [26]) to simultaneously estimate the wind field over a large region of the scatterometer measurement swath from measurements of the radar backscatter of the ocean's surface. In this paper we describe the assumptions made in developing the model and evaluate the accuracy of the resulting model. The model is based only on scatterometer data and is computationally tractable, consisting of a linear equation relating the near-surface wind field to a vector of model parameters which is estimated from the scatterometer measurements. We consider tradeoffs in the accuracy of the model and the number of unknown parameters. While we have developed our wind field model expressly for wind field estimation from scatterometer measurements, it is our hope that these results will prove helpful in other research areas. © 1990 Canadian Crown Copyright