Evaluation of ENVISAT ASAR data for sea surface wind retrieval in Hong Kong coastal waters of China

The C-band wind speed retrieval models, CMOD4, CMOD-IFR2, and CMOD5 were applied to retrieval of sea surface wind speeds from ENVISAT (European environmental satellite) ASAR (advanced synthetic aperture radar) data in the coastal waters near Hong Kong during a period from October 2005 to July 2007. The retrieved wind speeds are evaluated by comparing with buoy measurements and the QuikSCAT (quick scatterometer) wind products. The results show that the CMOD4 model gives the best performance at wind speeds lower than 15 m/s. The correlation coefficients with buoy and QuikSCAT winds are 0.781 and 0.896, respectively. The root mean square errors are the same 1.74 m/s. Namely, the CMOD4 model is the best one for sea surface wind speed retrieval from ASAR data in the coastal waters near Hong Kong.