Features of marine wind fields over New Zealand waters from ERS‐1 scatterometer data.

Abstract

Abstract Wind data from the ERS‐1 scatterometer have been processed for New Zealand waters. These show spatial features of marine wind fields which have previously been difficult to resolve using conventional surface‐based measurements. Winds across the western access to Cook Strait, delineated by a corridor between Farewell Spit and western Taranaki, were analysed and profiles of wind stress extracted. These show characteristic structures for south‐easterly events in which the stress steadily increases from Farewell Spit towards the Taranaki Coast. In westerly or north‐westerly events the structure is more uniform. The mean stress across this corridor has been compared to that calculated from surface‐based measurements at Farewell Spit and the Maui‐A oil and gas production platform off Cape Egmont. The Farewell spit data lead to underestimates of the stress, which partially reconciles previous attempts to model wind‐driven currents off the west coast of the South Island from these data. In these the currents were underestimated. The Maui‐A data are unbiased in westerly events but give overestimates in southeasterly winds. An improved estimate of the mean stress can be derived from using a combination of wind data from these two stations.