CYGNSS: Satellite-Derived Ocean Wind Speed and Surface Roughness

Version 2.1 CYGNSS Level 2 Science Data Record provides daily, geolocated average wind speed and mean square slope measurements over oceans with a 25x25 kilometer resolution. The data is produced by NASA's CYGNSS satellite constellation using its Delay Doppler Mapping Instrument, with one netCDF file generated per day containing measurements from up to eight spacecraft. This release represents a science-quality update with revised geophysical models, debiasing algorithms, and quality control flags.

Use Cases

• Modeling ocean surface wind patterns based on the reported average wind speed measurements.
• Analyzing sea surface roughness for wave studies based on the mean square slope (MSS) data.
• Monitoring tropical cyclone intensity and development using the time-tagged and geolocated wind speed records.
• Assessing the impact of revised geophysical model functions on wind speed retrieval accuracy.
• Applying quality control flags to filter data samples based on GPS satellite block type and retrieval consistency.

Strengths

• Provides wind speed and surface roughness data with a spatial resolution of 25x25 kilometers.
• Data is updated daily with a latency of approximately 6 days or better from the last measurement.
• Version 2.1 includes specific improvements to geophysical model functions, debiasing coefficients, and quality control flags.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the satellite constellation's coverage.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data is gathered by the Delay Doppler Mapping Instrument aboard the CYGNSS satellite constellation.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:24:51.030929; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global ocean coverage, determined by specular points of satellite measurements.