SeaWinds-on-QuikSCAT: Quality Flags for Ocean Wind Vector Selection

NASA's SeaWinds-on-QuikSCAT mission provides quality flags for ocean surface wind vector estimates. A model-based approach determines ambiguity selection consistency and identifies potential errors, producing a multi-level flag for each wind vector. The data is produced by the SCIOPS organization.

Use Cases

• Filtering unreliable wind vector estimates based on the multi-level quality flag.
• Validating wind retrieval algorithms by identifying potential ambiguity selection errors.
• Improving the reliability of ocean wind analyses by using the model-based consistency checks.

Strengths

• Provides a dedicated quality flag for each Level 2B wind vector estimate.
• Uses a model-based approach for systematic error identification.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

NASA Earthdata (SCIOPS)

Collection Method

Derived from SeaWinds-on-QuikSCAT Level 2B Ocean Wind Vectors using a model-based quality assurance analysis.

Geography

Global ocean coverage, consistent with the parent SeaWinds-on-QuikSCAT mission.