Aquarius Seasonal Ocean Surface Wind Speed Satellite Data

Seasonal ocean surface wind speed data from the official end-of-mission public release (Version 5.0) of the NASA-CONAE AQUARIUS/SAC-D satellite. The dataset provides gridded measurements at 1-degree spatial resolution, derived from a three-radiometer push broom instrument and a scatterometer for surface roughness correction. Its cross-platform presence on NASA Earth Data and Data.gov signals its established role in the remote sensing community.

Use Cases

• Analyzing seasonal variability and trends in global ocean surface winds using the gridded 1-degree resolution data.
• Validating or calibrating other wind speed models or satellite products against this official end-of-mission release dataset.
• Studying the relationship between ocean surface roughness (via scatterometer backscatter data) and wind speed for salinity estimation algorithms.
• Incorporating long-term seasonal wind averages into climate models or marine navigation risk assessments.

Strengths

• Represents the official final public data release (Version 5.0) from the collaborative NASA-CONAE AQUARIUS/SAC-D mission.
• Provides data at multiple temporal scales (daily, 7-day, monthly, seasonal), with this product focusing on seasonal averages.
• Derived from a specialized instrument suite, including three radiometers at different incidence angles and a dedicated scatterometer for correction.

Limitations

• Critical metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources.
• Sources conflict on license information, with one platform listing 'other-license-specified' and others showing null.

Provenance

Source

NASA and the Argentinian Space Agency Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE) via the AQUARIUS/SAC-D satellite mission.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing using three L-band radiometers and a scatterometer to measure brightness temperature and ocean backscatter.

Time Range

Seasonal averages (exact date range not specified in sources).

Freshness

2026-03-13 17:03:08.184316

Geography

Global ocean coverage with a 370 km cross-track swath, gridded to 1-degree spatial resolution.