NOAA CYGNSS: Daily 25-km Ocean Wind Speed Measurements from Satellite Constellation

Version 1.2 science-quality wind speed data from the CYGNSS satellite constellation, produced by NOAA/NESDIS. The dataset provides daily netCDF-4 files containing time-tagged and geolocated average wind speeds in 25x25 kilometer grid cells, with a latency of approximately 6 days from the last measurement. It includes updates for high wind speed performance, revised quality flags, and a wind speed retrieval error variable.

Use Cases

• Modeling tropical cyclone intensity and structure based on high-resolution wind speed measurements.
• Validating and calibrating other ocean wind data sources based on the track-wise debiasing algorithm and specific geophysical model function.
• Analyzing ocean surface wind patterns and variability based on daily, geolocated 25-km grid cell data.
• Studying air-sea interaction processes based on wind speed retrieval error estimates included in Version 1.2.

Strengths

• Data is science-quality (Version 1.2) and includes a specific wind speed retrieval error variable.
• Provides daily files with data from up to 8 unique CYGNSS spacecraft, offering multi-satellite coverage.
• Includes four major updates from Version 1.1, such as improved performance in higher wind speeds and full revision of quality flags.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for specific modeling tasks.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the CYGNSS satellite measurement tracks.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), processed by NOAA/NESDIS.

Collection Method

Produced from the Delay Doppler Mapping Instrument (DDMI) aboard the CYGNSS satellite constellation using a specific geophysical model function (GMF version 1.0) and a track-wise debiasing algorithm.

Time Range

Daily files with approximately 6-day latency from measurement.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 23:26:59.834956; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global ocean coverage along CYGNSS satellite measurement tracks.