Comparison of C-Band Quad-Polarization Synthetic Aperture Radar Wind Retrieval Models

This work discusses the accuracy of C-2PO (C-band cross-polarized ocean backscatter) and CMOD4 (C-band model) geophysical model functions (GMF) for sea surface wind speed retrieval from satellite-born Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images over in the Northwest Pacific off the coast of China. In situ observations are used for comparison of the retrieved wind speed using two established wind retrieval models: C-2PO model and CMOD4 GMF. Using 439 samples from 92 RADARSAT-2 fine quad-polarization SAR images and corresponding reference winds, we created two subset wind speed databases: the training and testing subsets. From the training data subset, we retrieve ocean surface wind speeds (OSWSs) from different models at each polarization and compare with reference wind speeds. The RMSEs of SAR-retrieved wind speeds are: 2.5 m/s: 2.11 m/s (VH-polarized), 2.13 m/s (HV-polarized), 1.86 m/s (VV-polarized) and 2.26 m/s (HH-polarized) and the correlation coefficients are 0.86 (VH-polarized), 0.85(HV-polarized), 0.87(VV-polarized) and 0.83 (HH-polarized), which are statistically significant at the 99.9% significance level. Moreover, we found that OSWSs retrieved using C-2PO model at VH-polarized are most suitable for moderate-to-high winds while CMOD4 GMF at VV-polarized tend to be best for low-to-moderate winds. A hybrid wind retrieval model is put forward composed of the two models, C-2PO and CMOD4 and sets of SAR test data are used in order to establish an appropriate wind speed threshold, to differentiate the wind speed range appropriate for one model from that of the other. The results show that the OSWSs retrieved using our hybrid method has RMSE of 1.66 m/s and the correlation coefficient are 0.9, thereby significantly outperforming both the C-2PO and CMOD4 models