NASA and CONAE's Aquarius/SAC-D satellite provides seasonal climatology of ocean surface wind speed. The dataset contains gridded wind speed data at 1-degree spatial resolution, derived from descending satellite passes. This version 5.0 product represents the official end-of-mission public data release from 2015.
Use Cases
- Modeling seasonal wind stress on ocean surface currents using the 1-degree gridded wind speed data.
- Analyzing spatial patterns in seasonal wind climatology for climate model validation.
- Correlating seasonal wind speed variations with other ocean surface parameters from the Aquarius mission, such as salinity.
- Studying the representativeness of descending-pass-only wind speed measurements for diurnal cycle analysis.
Strengths
- Data is the official version 5.0 end-of-mission public release, representing a final processed state.
- Provides a consistent seasonal climatology product, reducing noise from individual measurements.
- Sourced from a dedicated satellite instrument with three radiometers and a scatterometer for surface correction.
Limitations
- Data is from 2015 and is not updated, representing a fixed historical record.
- Product uses only descending satellite passes, potentially missing diurnal variability captured in ascending passes.
- The 1-degree spatial resolution may be too coarse for studying fine-scale coastal or mesoscale wind features.
Provenance
- Source
- NASA and the Argentinian Space Agency (CONAE) AQUARIUS/SAC-D mission.
- Collection Method
- Derived from brightness temperature measurements at 1.413 GHz by three push-broom radiometers and backscatter from a 1.26 GHz scatterometer on the satellite.
- Time Range
- Seasonal climatology (aggregated long-term average).
- Freshness
- Final release from 2015; no ongoing updates.
- Geography
- Global ocean coverage within the instrument's 370 km cross-track swath.