REMOTE SENSING OF EXTREME WIND AND OCEAN WAVE FIELDS

Active radar satellites transmit and receive radar signals with wavelengths in the range of centimeters to one meter thus measuring the roughness of the sea surface which enables the retrieval of surface wind and ocean wave fields under nearly all weather conditions independent of sun light. Tropical cyclones and other severe mesoscale storms have strong wind speeds above 30 m/s and high mean significant ocean wave height. Up to now, most algorithms need additional input such as first guess spectrum for the derivation of two dimensional wave spectra and the wind direction for the estimation of wind speed. Additionally, empirical algorithms called Cwave are developed at DLR which are able to derive wind speed and significant wave height without input from external sources. This paper gives an overview on global wind and wave monitoring using a two years wave mode dataset which will be extended to more than 15 year statistics back to 1991 as well as the capabilities to detect details on the wind and wave fields in hurricane situations