Australian nearshore regions are covered by daily gridded wind speed and direction data at 10m height, derived from Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites. The dataset is produced by the Australian Ocean Data Network using the CMOD5N geophysical model and variational Bayesian inversion, with winds calibrated against a scatterometer database. Data are presented in delayed mode on a 0.01 x 0.01-degree regular grid.
Use Cases
- Modeling coastal wind energy resources based on daily gridded wind speed and direction.
- Validating numerical weather prediction models using satellite-derived wind fields calibrated against scatterometer data.
- Studying nearshore wind patterns and their interaction with ocean waves using the 1km spatial resolution data.
- Assimilating observational wind data into regional climate models based on the consistent geophysical model function (CMOD5N).
Strengths
- Data are derived from multiple Sentinel-1 satellites (A, B, C) using a consistent, peer-reviewed algorithm (CMOD5N, Portabella et al., 2002).
- Wind speeds are calibrated against the Metop-A and B scatterometer wind database (Ribal and Young, 2020).
- Data are provided on a regular 0.01 x 0.01-degree grid, facilitating spatial analysis.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Data are in delayed mode, which may not be suitable for real-time applications.
Provenance
- Source
- Australian Ocean Data Network, utilizing Sentinel-1 SAR data from Europe's Copernicus Earth Observation program.
- Collection Method
- Winds derived from Sentinel-1 SAR using the CMOD5N geophysical model function and variational Bayesian inversion, sourced from the owi Level-2 product.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-07-10 21:16:49.533425; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Wider Australian nearshore regions.