Fusion of sea surface wind vector data acquired by multi-source active and passive sensors in China sea

ABSTRACT

This work is the first to analyse the sea surface wind vector (SSWV) data acquisition capabilities of eight satellites carrying microwave scatterometer (scanning scatterometer carried by Haiyang satellite 2A, advanced scatterometer carried by Metop satellite A, advanced scatterometer carried by Metop satellite B and scanning scatterometer carried by Oceansat satellite 2) or radiometers (Special Sensor Microwave Imager carried by Meteorological Satellite Program satellites F15 and F17, advanced microwave scanning radiometer 2 carried by GCOM-W1 satellite, and windsat polarimetric radiometer carried by Coriolis satellite) and investigate a SSWV fusion algorithm for active and passive remote-sensing data. We found that combining observations of the eight satellites can provide an SSWV data product with spatial resolution of 25 km × 25 km and temporal resolution of 3 h. Sea surface wind speed and direction data were obtained from multi-source active and passive sensors using a spatiotemporally weighted fusion algorithm. An adaptive sliding window was introduced for calculating effective observation data within spatial/temporal radii, which can effectively improve calculation efficiency for wind field fusion. Comparing the fused and buoy observation results, the root-mean-square errors of the wind direction and speed were 20.6° and 1.2 m s^–1, respectively, indicating that the fusion results can meet most application requirements for wind vector. Meanwhile, the space coverage, accuracy of merged wind speed and wind direction can be improved comparing to a single sensor.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 41576177 and 41106152], National Science and Technology Support Program of China [grant number 2013BAD13B01], National High Technology Research and Development Program (“863” Program) of China [grant number 2013AA09A505], International Science & Technology Cooperation Program of China [grant number 2011DFA22260], and Marine Public Projects of China [grant numbers 201105032 and 201305032].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 41576177 and 41106152], National Science and Technology Support Program of China [grant number 2013BAD13B01], National High Technology Research and Development Program (“863” Program) of China [grant number 2013AA09A505], International Science & Technology Cooperation Program of China [grant number 2011DFA22260], and Marine Public Projects of China [grant numbers 201105032 and 201305032].