CYGNSS Level 3: Daily Ocean Wind Speed and Wave Slope Grids

NASA's CYGNSS satellite constellation provides a daily Climate Data Record of average ocean surface wind speed and mean square slope on a 0.2x0.2 degree latitude-longitude grid. The Version 1.1 product uses a trackwise correction algorithm applied to Level 1 data, improving calibration accuracy and long-term stability relative to previous versions. A single netCDF-4 file is produced for each day of operation with an approximate 1 to 2 month latency.

Use Cases

• Modeling ocean-atmosphere interactions based on daily gridded wind speed data.
• Analyzing long-term trends in ocean surface roughness based on mean square slope measurements.
• Calibrating other wind measurement systems using the trackwise-corrected satellite data.
• Studying wind patterns in fully developed sea state conditions, as the dataset is optimized for this.

Strengths

• Data is processed on a 0.2x0.2 degree equirectangular grid, providing consistent spatial resolution.
• Version 1.1 exhibits improved calibration accuracy and long-term stability relative to SDR v3.0.
• A single file is produced for each day of operation, offering a regular temporal cadence.

Limitations

• The trackwise correction algorithm is inherently biased toward fully developed sea states and omits a Young Seas with Limited Fetch (YSLF) wind speed product.
• Some samples present in the SDR v3.0 data are lost because the correction algorithm cannot be applied to all Level 1 data.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data derived from the Delay Doppler Mapping Instrument aboard the CYGNSS satellite constellation, processed using a trackwise correction algorithm.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:19:12.638254; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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