Intercomparisons of Directional Wave Spectra from ASAR, BUOYS and the WAM Model: The Co-Location Dstabase

Abstract

This report is part of the deliverable to the project Development and Application of Validated Geophysical Ocean Wave Products from ENVISAT ASAR and RA-2 Instruments (EnviWave), contract no. EVG1-CT-2001-00051. It describes the use and some applications of a database of co-located buoy, ASAR, and WAM directional wave spectra, and complex Envisat imagettes. The database is compiled mostly from the ASAR/NDBC buoy co-located database at CERSAT, Brest, but all data have been through additional quality controls. The system is written in Matlab and, apart from the separate collection imagettes, the database itself is less than 10Mb and kept as a binary Matlab MAT-file stored in the form of cell arrays.

For all co-located data, the difference in time between the ASAR and the buoy spectra are less than 1 hour and the distance less than 275km. Similarly, for the ASAR and WAM data, the time difference is less than 3 hours and the distance less than 25km. The present database consists of all together 2760 different co-located cases.

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