Ocean Wind Speed Climatology from Spaceborne SAR Imagery

Abstract

e synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery can make high-resolution (≤500 m) ocean wind speed measurements. The authors anticipate reprocessing the full decade and a half of Radarsat-1 SAR imagery and generating a SAR wind speed archive. These data will be of use for studies of coastal atmospheric phenomena and assessment of offshore wind power potential. To illustrate the potential of this latter application, they review the ability of SARs to measure wind speed, discuss an approach for using SARs to create wind speed climatologies useful for wind power resource assessments, and consider issues concerning the applicably of such data for these assessments.