Data Products  › Product & Algorithm › Caveats of Sea surface wind speed product
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Caveats for the standard products

Caveats of Sea surface wind speed product

Algorithm development PI: Dr. Akira Shibata (JAXA Earth Observation Research Center)

This document briefly describes some caveats for the AMSR-E Level 2 standard products of sea surface wind speed.
Retrieval areas
This product retrieves sea-surface wind speed over global oceans (except over sea ice), but not in areas of precipitation (more than 1mm/h), coastal regions (within few score kilometers from coastlines), and Sun-glitter (less than 10 degrees of relative angle between the Sun and observing directions). The retrieval error of sea-surface wind speed may increase since the accuracy in correcting wind direction using the 6.925-GHz horizontal polarization channel degrades near sun-glitter areas with a relative angle between 10 and 25 degrees. For the same reason, wind speed errors may increase in the coastal regions (distance from coastlines is between few score kilometers and 100 km). All possible sea ice areas are excluded. The reason for missing data is included in the product quality flag information.

Retrieval range and error
Sea-surface wind speeds of 0 to 30 m/s are retrieved. The retrieval error was evaluated to be within 1.5m/s (rms) by comparison with mooring buoy wind speeds obtained through the Global Telecommunication System (GTS) and Internet (e.g., TAO buoys). The comparison was made using the data of January and August 2003 and July 2002.