Coastal Ocean Surface Wind Vectors from MetOp-B ASCAT Satellite

Operational near-real-time Level 2 coastal ocean surface wind vector retrievals from the Advanced Scatterometer on the MetOp-B satellite. The dataset is produced by the EUMETSAT Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility and provided through the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. It uses a spatial box filter on Level 1B Sigma-0 retrievals to enable wind computation as close as ~15 km from the coast.

Use Cases

• Analyzing coastal wind speed and direction patterns using the wind vector cell data for maritime safety and navigation.
• Validating numerical weather prediction model outputs in coastal zones against the 12.5 km sampling resolution satellite retrievals.
• Studying air-sea interaction processes near coastlines by correlating wind vectors with other oceanographic parameters available in the netCDF files.
• Assimilating the ~2-hour latency wind vector observations into nowcasting systems for severe coastal weather events.

Strengths

• Enhanced coastal retrieval allows wind computation ~15 km from the coast, compared to a ~35 km land mask in standard products.
• Data has an approximate latency of 2 hours from the latest measurement, supporting near-real-time applications.
• Utilizes full resolution Level 1B Sigma-0 retrievals within a 15 km radius for spatial averaging, discarding non-sea retrievals.

Limitations

• The effective spatial resolution is 25 km, despite a 12.5 km sampling, which may limit fine-scale feature detection.
• Coverage is limited to the swaths of the MetOp-B satellite's sun-synchronous polar orbit, creating temporal gaps at any single location.
• Relies on the CMOD5.n geophysical model function, which may introduce systematic errors in wind vector estimation under certain conditions.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Derived from Advanced Scatterometer backscatter retrievals aboard the MetOp-B satellite, processed using a spatial box filter and the CMOD5.n geophysical model function.

Time Range

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Freshness

Operational near-real-time with approximately 2-hour latency. null for specific update frequency.

Geography

Global coastal ocean regions, from satellite swaths in a sun-synchronous polar orbit.