Evaluations of the Significant Wave Height Products of HY-2B Satellite Radar Altimeters

Abstract

In the present study, the qualities of the HY-2B along-track significant wave heights (SWH) are assessed, including precision and accuracy. A quality evaluation based on 1 Hz standard deviations is proposed to detect the precision of HY-2B SWH products. The density plots of the (SWH, std) pairs obtained by the HY-2B, Jason-2 and Jason-3 are compared. And the results indicates that the HY-2B SWH root mean square error levels are significantly lower than those observed for the other altimeters. With respect to the SWH obtained from the wave rider buoys, buoys of the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC), Jason-2 and Jason-3, the root mean square errors are 24 cm, 27 cm, 26 cm and 23 cm respectively. The comparison results confirm that the quality of the HY-2B SWH data higher.

Keywords:

• HY-2B
• Radar altimeters
• satellites
• significant wave heights
• validation

Acknowledgments

The buoy data used in this study were downloaded from NDBC. The Jason-2 GDR-D data were obtained from AVISO. HY-2B data were obtained from https://osdds.nsoas.org.cn/#/. The authors would like to thank NDBC and AVISO for providing the data free of charge. In addition, the authors would like to thank Mr. Chenqing Fan, Mr. Maofei Jiang and Mr. Jungang Yang for their assistance in the data processing.

Additional information

Funding

National Key R and D Program of China (grant number 2016YFC1401004), Key Special Project for Introduced Talents Team of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (GML2019ZD0302).