S-MODE Shipboard Windcube LiDAR: Ocean Winds Offshore San Francisco

Approximately 300 km offshore of San Francisco, this dataset contains shipboard windcube LiDAR observations from the Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE). It includes data from a pilot campaign in October 2021 and two intensive operating periods in Fall 2022 and Spring 2023. The experiment aims to understand how short-scale ocean dynamics influence vertical exchange of physical and biological variables.

Use Cases

• Analyzing vertical wind profiles based on shipboard LiDAR measurements
• Studying sub-mesoscale ocean dynamics influencing vertical exchange
• Modeling air-sea interactions offshore of San Francisco
• Calibrating satellite-derived ocean wind data with in-situ observations

Strengths

• Data covers multiple campaigns over a two-year period (2021-2023)
• Provides geospatial and time-series data for a specific oceanographic experiment
• Available in netCDF format, a standard for scientific data

Limitations

• Column names and exact row counts are unknown
• Metadata shows conflicting last updated dates (2023-05-06 vs 2026-04-09)
• License is ambiguously specified as 'other-license-specified'

Provenance

Source

POCLOUD

Collection Method

Shipboard windcube LiDAR observations collected during the S-MODE experiment.

Time Range

October 2021 to Spring 2023

Freshness

2026-04-09 22:52:34.925729

Geography

Approximately 300 km offshore of San Francisco