{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,3]],"date-time":"2026-04-03T14:22:28Z","timestamp":1775226148826,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":28,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"18","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,9,22]],"date-time":"2020-09-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1600732800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"The National Key R&amp;D Program of China","award":["(Grant No. 2017YFC1405600)."],"award-info":[{"award-number":["(Grant No. 2017YFC1405600)."]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) altimeters represent a new method of microwave remote sensing for ocean wave observations. The adoption of SAR technology in the azimuthal direction has the advantage of a high resolution. The Sentinel-3 altimeter is the first radar altimeter to acquire global observations in SAR mode; hence, the data quality needs to be assessed before extensively applying these data. The European Space Agency (ESA) evaluates the Sentinel-3 accuracy on a global scale but has yet to perform a detailed analysis in terms of different offshore distances and different water depths. In this paper, Sentinel-3 and Jason-2 significant wave height (SWH) data are matched in both time and space with buoy data from the United States East and West Coasts and the Central Pacific Ocean. The Sentinel-3 SWH data quality is evaluated according to different offshore distances and water depths in comparison with Jason-2 SWH data. In areas more than 50 km offshore, the Sentinel-3 SWH accuracy is generally high and less affected by the water depth and sea conditions (root-mean-square error of 0.28 m and correlation coefficient of 0.98); in areas less than 50 km offshore, the SWH data accuracy is slightly affected by water depth and sea conditions (especially the former). Compared with Jason-2, the observation ability of the Sentinel-3 altimeter in nearshore areas with water depths of 0 m-500 m is greatly improved, but in some deep water areas with stable sea conditions, the Jason-2 SWH data accuracy is higher than that of Sentinel-3. This work provides a reference for the refined application of Sentinel-3 SWH data in offshore deep water areas and nearshore shallow water areas.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs12183107","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,9,23]],"date-time":"2020-09-23T09:28:08Z","timestamp":1600853288000},"page":"3107","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":7,"title":["Evaluation of the Significant Wave Height Data Quality for the Sentinel-3 Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0839-6738","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yong","family":"Wan","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Oceanography and Space Informatics, China University of Petroleum, No. 66, Changjiangxi Road, Huangdao District, Qingdao 266580, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Rongjuan","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Control Science and Engineering, China University of Petroleum, No. 66, Changjiangxi Road, Huangdao District, Qingdao 266580, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xiaodong","family":"Pan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Marine Environmental Monitoring Center of Wenzhou, The State Oceanic Administration, No. 2, Xinanjiang Road, Wenzhou Avenue, Wenzhou 325000, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Chenqing","family":"Fan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Remote Sensing Office of The First Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, No. 6, Xianxia Road, Laoshan District, Qingdao 266061, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yongshou","family":"Dai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Oceanography and Space Informatics, China University of Petroleum, No. 66, Changjiangxi Road, Huangdao District, Qingdao 266580, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,9,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"073694","DOI":"10.1117\/1.JRS.7.073694","article-title":"Coastal wave field extraction using TerraSAR-X data","volume":"7","author":"Bruck","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. 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