Sentinel-1A Ocean Product Metadata for Wind, Wave, and Current Applications

Sentinel-1A, launched April 3, 2014, is a sun-synchronous polar-orbiting satellite performing C-band synthetic aperture radar imaging. Its Level 2 Ocean products provide geolocated geophysical components for wind, wave, and currents, derived from Single Look Complex and Ground Range Detected data. The Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center creates the ISO-compliant XML metadata from Sentinel-1A SAFE format products.

Use Cases

• Estimating ocean surface wind speed and direction at 10 meters based on the Ocean Wind field (OWI) component.
• Analyzing ocean swell patterns and spectra based on the Ocean Swell spectra (OSW) component.
• Mapping surface radial velocity for current studies based on the Surface Radial Velocity (RVL) component.
• Comparing geophysical data derived from different satellite acquisition modes (SM, IW, EW) with resolutions down to 5 meters.

Strengths

• Data originates from the Sentinel-1A satellite, a dedicated C-band SAR imaging platform launched in 2014.
• Products provide multiple geophysical components (OWI, OSW, RVL) for ocean applications.
• Satellite operates in four imaging modes with resolutions down to 5 meters and coverage up to 400 kilometers.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF) Distributed Active Archive Center, derived from Sentinel-1A data.

Collection Method

ISO-compliant XML metadata created from associated Sentinel-1A SAFE format products.

Time Range

Data collection began after the Sentinel-1A launch on April III, 2014; specific temporal coverage is unknown.

Freshness

Satellite launched April 3, 2014; product update frequency is unknown.

Geography

Global ocean coverage from the sun-synchronous polar orbiting Sentinel-1A satellite.