Analysis of the effects of rain on surface wind retrieval from X-band marine radar images

In this paper, the effects of rain on sea surface wind retrieval from X-band shipborne marine radar images are investigated. Two wind algorithms are applied to the shipborne radar data collected from the Eastern Canadian Coast. It is observed that rain enhances the backscatter intensity of the HH-polarized X-band radar images of the sea surface and results in the radar-retrieved wind speed being overestimated. In the presence of rain, the standard deviation (STD) of wind speed and wind direction using modified intensity-level-selection (ILS) based method increases by about 1.6 m/s and 10.7°, respectively, compared to the results obtained from rain-contamination-free data.