MetOp-B ASCAT Ocean Wind Vectors at 25km Resolution

Operational near-real-time Level 2 ocean surface wind vector retrievals from the Advanced Scatterometer aboard the MetOp-B satellite. The European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility provides this data through the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute with a latency of approximately 2 hours.

Use Cases

• Modeling ocean surface wind patterns based on dual-swath fan beam radar scatterometer retrievals.
• Monitoring near-real-time wind conditions for maritime safety based on data with a 2-hour latency.
• Calibrating other wind measurement systems based on C-band geophysical model function retrievals.
• Studying polar orbit satellite data coverage based on full orbit swath files derived from 3-minute granules.

Strengths

• Data is provided in near-real-time with a latency of approximately 2 hours from measurement.
• Wind vectors are derived using the CMOD.n geophysical model function with a Hamming filter for spatial averaging.
• Files contain one full orbit derived from 3-minute granules, providing complete swath coverage.
• Intellectual property rights belong to EUMETSAT, with use granted free of charge to every interested user.

Limitations

• The effective resolution of the wind vector retrievals is 50 km, despite a 25 km sampling resolution.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility via Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

Collection Method

Processed from ASCAT L1B data using the CMOD.n geophysical model function and a Hamming filter.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 00:22:24.019081; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global ocean coverage from a sun-synchronous polar orbit aboard the MetOp-B platform.