| Abstract: | In this study, we present a comprehensive comparison of the sea surface wind field measured by scatterometer (Ku-band scatterometer) aboard the Chinese HY-2A satellite and the full-polarimetric radiometer WindSat aboard the Coriolis satellite. The two datasets cover a four-year period from October 2011 to September 2015 in the global oceans. For the sea surface wind speed, the statistical comparison indicates good agreement between the HY-2A scatterometer and WindSat with a bias of nearly 0 m/s and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.13 m/s. For the sea surface wind direction, a bias of 1.41° and an RMSE of 20.39° were achieved after excluding the data collocated with opposing directions. Furthermore, discrepancies in sea surface wind speed measured by the two sensors in the global oceans were investigated. It is found that the larger differences mainly appear in the westerlies in the both hemispheres. Both the bias and RMSE show latitude dependence, i.e., they have significant latitudinal fl uctuations. |
