Surface winds over the world's oceans are routinely monitored by
low-Earth-orbiting satellites.  The satellite instruments used are
either scatterometers, which are radars that measure the echo from the
surface, or radiometers, which measure the microwave radiation (i.e. heat)
emitted by the surface.  This talk will provide an overview of these
technologies, as well as describe ongoing work by the Microwave Remote
Sensing Laboratory to study wind signatures in hurricanes and
high-latitude winter storms from aircraft.