There is a
need for high quality time series of offshore wind speeds and directions with
good spatial and temporal coverage for wind resource estimation and for
simulating grid and market integration of proposed offshore wind farms.
Satellite-based remote sensing instruments are a potentially useful source of
offshore wind speeds and directions offering wide area coverage. A product
derived from satellite-based scatterometry measurements, QuikSCAT3 wind speeds,
was compared to surface winds measured by two buoys in the Irish Sea during
2005 and 2008. The observations are collocated in time and space by selecting
the QuikSCAT wind vector cell closest to the buoys, and several statistical
measures were used to compare the two datasets. There is good agreement between
point measurements from the buoys and the collocated QuikSCAT, indicating that
scatterometry data is indeed valuable in the early stages of offshore wind
resource assessment.