Data from the SWOT satellite shows significant wave height interactions with currents and winds, highlighting their importance.
The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission enables, for the first time, two‐dimensional (2D) mapping of significant wave height at kilometer‐scale resolution. Using data from SWOT's Ka‐band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn), this study investigates interactions between surface waves, winds, and currents across diverse dynamic regimes, including western boundary currents, mesoscale turbulence, tropical cyclones, and wave group modulation. SWOT reveals unprecedented 2D spatial gradients in , capturing fine‐scale variability previously identified only in numerical models. These observations highlight the critical role of currents in shaping the wave field and show strong agreement with theoretical predictions. SWOT's high‐resolution wave data represent a transformative advance in understanding gradients, paving the way for refining operational models and addressing challenges in characterizing the influence of sea state gradients on coupled air‐sea processes.
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Bôas et al. (2025) studied this question.