Wind waves in the North Atlantic from ship navigational radar: SeaVision development and its validation with the Spotter wave buoy and WaveWatch III

Abstract. Wind waves play an important role in the climate system, modulating energy exchange between ocean and atmosphere effecting mixing. However, existing ship-based observational networks of wind are still sparse, limiting therefore possibilities validating satellite missions model simulations. In this paper we present data collected on three research cruises North Atlantic Arctic 2020 2021 SeaVision system for measuring wave characteristics over open with a standard marine navigation X-band radar. Simultaneously characteristic measurements, also from Spotter buoy at same locations, ran WaveWatch III very high-resolution configuration domain. measurements were validated against co-located intercompared output Observations radar found to be good agreement simulations best match propagation directions. Supporting datasets consist significant heights, directions, periods frequency spectra derived both buoy. All supporting available through PANGAEA repository – https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.939620 (Gavrikov et al., 2021). The dataset can further used validation regional experiments. Our study shows potential ship radars (when assembled or similar systems) development new near-global network providing much larger number observations compared e.g. Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS) vessel campaigns.