Wind and wave reports from ships of opportunity are compared with each other and with reports from 47 moored buoys when the ships were within 100 km of the buoys or each other at the same reporting times. Analyses were performed on greater than 113,000 paired reports dating from 1973 to 1983. Standard deviations of differences for winds are of the order of 5 to 8 knots and 40 to 50 deg with means of 2 to 4 knots and 10 deg. Poor agreement is the result of systematic errors shown to be in part the preference for reporting speed in multiples of 5 knots and directions near 8 points of the compass. Differences in significant wave heights reported by ships and buoys have a mean of 0.5 m with standard deviations of 1.5 to 2.5 m.
Accuracy Estimates of Wind and Wave Observations from Ships of Opportunity in the WMO Voluntary Observing Ship Program
1986
8 pages
Report
No indication
English
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