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    • MetOp-A ASCAT Level 2 Ocean Surface Wind Vectors Optimized for Coastal Ocean

    Metadata Updated: August 22, 2025

    This dataset contains operational near-real-time Level 2 coastal ocean surface wind vector retrievals from the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) on MetOp-A at 12.5 km sampling resolution (note: the effective resolution is 25 km). It is a product of the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF) provided through the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). This coastal dataset differs from the standard 25 km datasets in that it utilizes a spatial box filter (rather than the Hamming filter) to generate a spatial average of the Sigma-0 retrievals from the Level 1B dataset; all full resolution Sigma-0 retrievals within a 15 km radius of the wind vector cell centroid are used in the averaging. Since the full resolution L1B Sigma-0 retrievals are used, all non-sea retrievals are discarded prior to the Sigma-0 averaging. Each box average Sigma-0 is then used to compute the wind vector cell using the same CMOD7.n geophysical model function as in the standard OSI SAF ASCAT wind vector datasets. With this enhanced coastal retrieval, winds can be computed as close to ~15 km from the coast, as compared to the static ~35 km land mask in the standard 12.5 km dataset. Each file is provided in netCDF version 3 format, and contains one full orbit derived from 3-minute orbit granules. Latency is approximately 2 hours from the latest measurement. The beginning of the orbit is defined by the first wind vector cell measurement within the first 3-minute orbit granule that starts north of the Equator in the ascending node. ASCAT is a C-band dual fan beam radar scatterometer providing two independent swaths of backscatter retrievals in sun-synchronous polar orbit aboard the MetOp-A platform. For more information on the MetOp mission, please visit: https://www.eumetsat.int/our-satellites/metop-series . For more timely announcements, users are encouraged to register with the KNMI scatterometer email list: scat@knmi.nl. Users are also highly advised to check the dataset user guide periodically for updates and new information on known problems and issues. All intellectual property rights of the OSI SAF products belong to EUMETSAT. The use of these products is granted to every interested user, free of charge. If you wish to use these products, EUMETSAT's copyright credit must be shown by displaying the words "copyright (year) EUMETSAT" on each of the products used.

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

    Downloads & Resources

    Dates

    Metadata Created Date December 1, 2022
    Metadata Updated Date August 22, 2025

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from NASA Data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date December 1, 2022
    Metadata Updated Date August 22, 2025
    Publisher NASA/JPL/PODAAC
    Maintainer
    Identifier C1996881752-POCLOUD
    Data First Published 2011-05-19
    Language en-US
    Data Last Modified 2025-07-17
    Category MetOp, geospatial
    Public Access Level public
    Bureau Code 026:00
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Harvest Object Id 74da5862-9701-47e1-95f2-ed6c5428356d
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    Homepage URL https://cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov:443/search/concepts/C1996881752-POCLOUD.html
    Metadata Type geospatial
    Old Spatial -180.0 -89.6 180.0 89.6
    Program Code 026:001
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash ca37288bb11dcaa748616347af28ed20253f5fc6dba6d0ea94a6e820da59df7f
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 2010-08-18T00:21:01Z/2021-11-15T08:54:00Z

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