Comparison of wind speeds from QuikSCAT scatterometry and surface buoys for wind resource estimation in the Irish Sea

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, QuikSCAT Level 3 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 cells, indicating that scatterometry data is indeed valuable in the early stages of offshore wind resource assessment.