Sentinel-1B Level 2 Ocean products provide geolocated geophysical data derived from C-band synthetic aperture radar imaging. The metadata includes components for ocean wind fields, swell spectra, and surface radial velocity, generated by the Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center. The dataset covers the operational period of the Sentinel-1B satellite from its launch in April 2016 until its anomaly in December 2021.
Use Cases
- Estimating surface wind speed and direction at 10m height based on the Ocean Wind field (OWI) component.
- Analyzing ocean swell patterns and spectra using 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).
Strengths
- Data is derived from C-band SAR imaging with a resolution down to 5 meters and coverage up to 400 kilometers.
- Products provide dual polarization capability and short revisit times.
- Metadata is ISO compliant XML, created by the Alaska Satellite Facility DAAC.
Limitations
- The availability of wind, wave, or current components depends on the specific acquisition mode, which may limit data completeness.
- Last updated 2021-12-24 00:00:00; freshness should be verified as the satellite mission ended in 2022.
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
Provenance
- Source
- Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center (ASF DAAC)
- Collection Method
- ISO compliant XML metadata created from Sentinel-1B SAFE format products.
- Time Range
- From satellite launch April 25, 2016, until data delivery anomaly December 23, 2021.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2021-12-24 00:00:00
- Geography
- Global, from sun-synchronous polar-orbiting satellite coverage.