Validation of ocean surface winds from the OCEANSAT-2 scatterometer using triple collocation

Ocean surface winds from the OCEANSAT-2 scatterometer (OSCAT) were validated with equivalent neutral wind observations from 87 global buoys and winds from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model using triple collocation for a period of 9 months. Functional relationship analysis (FRA) employing the error-in-variables method is found to be more ‘exact’ in comparison with classical linear regression analysis for the validation of the OSCAT data. Moreover, using the wind component domain for validation and error assessment rather than the speed and direction domain is confirmed to be favourable. The FRA method applied on the triple-collocated wind components shows that the error standard deviations of the OSCAT and buoy winds are quite similar. The calibration trends and biases for OSCAT, buoys and ECMWF are found to be close to unity and zero, respectively.

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