As well as range, the AltiKa altimeter provides estimates of wave height, H s and normalized backscatter, σ 0 , that need to be assessed prior to statistics based on them being included in climate databases. An analysis of crossovers with the Jason-2 altimeter shows AltiKa H s values to be biased high by only ~0.05m, with a standard deviation (s.d.) of ~0.1m for 7-point averages. AltiKa's σ 0 values are 2.5-3 dB less than those from Jason-2, with a s.d. of ~0.3 dB, with these relatively large mismatches to be expected as AltiKa measures a different part of the spectrum of sea surface roughness. A new wind speed algorithm is developed through matching a histogram of σ 0 values to that for Jason-2 wind speeds. The algorithm is robust to the use of short durations of data, with a consistency at roughly the 0.1 m/s level. Incorporation of H s as a secondary input reduces the assessed error at crossovers from 0.82 m/s to 0.71 m/s. A comparison across all altimeter frequencies used to date demonstrates that the lowest wind speeds preferentially develop the shortest scales of roughness.