IMOS SAR Wind: Sentinel-1 Derived Ocean Wind Speeds for Australian Coastal Regions

IMOS - Satellite Remote Sensing - Surface Waves Sub-Facility provides wind speed and direction data derived from Sentinel-1 A, B, and C Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites. The dataset covers the wider Australian coastal regions, with winds derived at approximately 1km resolution using the CMOD5N geophysical model and a variational Bayesian inversion approach. Wind speeds are calibrated against the Metop-A and B scatterometer database from Ribal and Young, 2020.

Use Cases

• Modeling coastal wind patterns and energy potential based on 10m neutral stability wind speed and direction data.
• Validating numerical weather prediction models using wind data derived from Sentinel-1 SAR imagery.
• Studying ocean-atmosphere interactions in Australian coastal regions based on the 1km resolution wind fields.
• Analyzing temporal consistency in wind retrievals based on the application of a single geophysical model function (CMOD5N) over time.

Strengths

• Wind data is derived using a consistent geophysical model function (CMOD5N) over time, unlike the source product.
• Wind speeds are calibrated against the Metop-A and B scatterometer wind database of Ribal and Young, 2020.
• Data is sourced from Europe's Copernicus Earth Observation program Sentinel-1 satellites, providing a reliable observation platform.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is presented 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 program.

Collection Method

Wind speed and direction derived from Sentinel-1 SAR using the CMOD5N geophysical model function and a variational Bayesian inversion approach.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-13 10:46:09.038364; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Wider Australian coastal regions.