MetOp-B ASCAT Coastal Ocean Wind Vectors at 12.5 km Resolution

Operational near-real-time Level 2 coastal ocean surface wind vector retrievals from the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) on the MetOp-B satellite. The product is generated by the EUMETSAT Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF) and provided through the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). Latency is approximately 2 hours from the latest measurement.

Use Cases

• Model coastal wind patterns for weather forecasting based on near-real-time satellite retrievals.
• Analyze near-shore wind dynamics for marine navigation and safety based on data optimized for coastal proximity.
• Validate and calibrate numerical weather prediction models based on satellite-derived wind vectors.
• Study wind-sea interactions in coastal regions based on high-resolution spatial sampling.
• Monitor temporal changes in coastal wind fields based on time-series orbital data.

Strengths

• Optimized for coastal regions, allowing wind computation as close as ~15 km from the coast compared to a standard ~35 km land mask.
• Utilizes a spatial box filter averaging all full-resolution Sigma-0 retrievals within a 15 km radius of the wind vector cell centroid.
• Latency is approximately 2 hours from the latest measurement, supporting near-real-time applications.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The effective resolution is 25 km despite a 12.5 km sampling resolution.

Provenance

Source

European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF) via the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI).

Collection Method

Satellite retrievals from the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) on the MetOp-B platform, processed using the CMOD5.n geophysical model function.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 00:47:03.585227; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage from a sun-synchronous polar orbit, with enhanced focus on coastal regions.