The NASA scatterometer, NSCAT, was designed to estimate from space the wind
velocity relative to the ocean surface velocity. Assuming that the spatial
scale of the meteorological forcing giving rise to the wind is large compa
red with the diameter of a warm core ring, it should be possible to obtain
information about the currents in the ring from the demeaned scatterometer
winds. To test this hypothesis, 14 NSCAT passes obtained within three days
of clear AVHRR-derived sea surface temperature images showing a warm core r
ing were analyzed for evidence of circulation in the rings. The residual wi
nd vectors for the 14 scatterometer passes were binned and averaged by radi
al distance from ring center. The mean azimuthal component of the speed com
pares well with ADCP data collected in one of the rings: a maximum of appro
ximate to0.89 m/s approximate to 50 km from ring center compared with 0.88
m/s and 1.0 m/s for the two ADCP transects, both also at 50 km from ring ce
nter.