Objectives Spaceborne global navigation satellite system-reflectometry（GNSS-R） has been demonstrated to be effective in retrieving global sea surface wind speed, and many missions have been launched in orbit or planned. “Jilin-1” Kuanfu-01B satellite, as a commercial remote sensing satellite of China, equipped a GNSS-R instrument to observe Earth's physical parameters. This paper aims to preliminarily analyze and demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of GNSS-R data from “Jilin-1” Kuanfu-01B satellite for retrieving sea surface wind speed.

Methods Three basic observables sensitive to wind speed, namely the delay-Doppler map (DDM) peak signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the leading-edge slope and trailing-edge slope of the normalized delay waveform, are extracted from the DDMs of “Jilin-1” Kuanfu-01B satellite, and are used to demonstrate and assess the potential in retrieving wind speed. Three basic observables have obvious inversely proportional relationships with wind speed; therefore, an empirical exponential function is used to develop the geographic model function (GMF) between the basic observables and wind speed. Furthermore, the root mean square error (RMSE) between the retrieved wind speeds and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) data are obtained.

Results The RMSE of the retrieved wind speed using DDM peak SNR, leading-edge slope and trailing-edge slope are 3.22 m/s, 3.67 m/s and 3.49 m/s without data quality control and data calibration. When SNR is controlled to be larger than -6 dB, the RMSE of the retrieved wind speed using the DDM peak SNR reduces to be within 2 m/s, and the useful data are 78.11 % of that without data quality control. For leading-edge slope and trailing-edge slope, when SNR threshold is -3 dB, the RMSE of retrieved wind speed is also decreased to be within 2 m/s, and the useful data reduce to 53.74 %.

Conclusions The results show that the GNSS-R data from “Jilin-1” Kuanfu-01B satellite can be used to measure sea surface wind speed. The data used in the paper are uncalibrated, therefore, the retrieved performances are not optimal. It is a key work to calibrate the influence of transmitted power, transmission gain, and propagation path on the DDM.