Global Ocean Wind Measurements From Multi-Sensor Satellite Data

MWOW 6-Hourly High Resolution Global Ocean Wind Level 3 Version 0.1 contains global gridded wind speed and direction data at 1/64th degree horizontal resolution. The dataset harmonizes retrievals from the KaRIn satellite-based SAR with data from three scatterometers and one radiometer. Version 0 was produced by the NASA-funded MWOW Project, with an initial bulk ingest in January 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyze spatial patterns of wind_speed and wind_direction at 1/64th degree resolution for ocean weather forecasting.
• Compare wind retrievals from the KaRIn satellite-based SAR instrument against data from the three scatterometers and one radiometer for sensor validation.
• Study temporal wind variability using the 6-hourly timestep data across the global ocean grid.
• Investigate overlapping observations reported along the time dimension for the same instrument to assess measurement consistency.

Strengths

• High spatial resolution of 1/64th degree for global ocean coverage.
• Multi-sensor harmonized product combining data from five distinct satellite instruments.
• 6-hourly temporal resolution provides frequent global snapshots.

Limitations

• Version 0.1 is an initial assessment release with no user guide, intended for stakeholder feedback.
• Observations from each instrument are kept separate and not aggregated into a composite map per timestep.
• Temporal coverage is limited, beginning with a bulk ingest in January 2026.

Provenance

Source

MWOW (Multi-sensor Worldwide Ocean Winds) Project, funded by NASA's Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG).

Collection Method

Harmonized product combining retrievals from KaRIn satellite-based SAR with interpolated data from three scatterometers and one radiometer.

Time Range

Initial bulk ingest in January 2026.

Freshness

Data is forward-streaming, with initial version from January 2026.

Geography

Global ocean coverage.