Examining ERS-1 SAR wave estimates using the quasi-linear SAR transform and aircraft ROWS data

During the Grand Banks experiment for ERS-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) wave spectra validation, a large set of in-situ and airborne wind and wave measurements was collected. In particular, NASA Goddard Space Flight center´s radar ocean wave spectrometer (ROWS), flying nearly simultaneously over the ERS-1 SAR swath and operating in both spectrometer and altimeter modes, provided measurements of ocean directional wave spectra and wind speed. The set of geophysical parameters (wind speed, directional spectrum) is used to study the SAR´s ability to accurately measure ocean gravity waves. The forward mapping of ROWS spectrum into ERS-1 SAR spectrum using quasilinear transform is also discussed