New SMOS Wind Data Service products available

The ESA/SMOS Wind Data Service operated by IFREMER/OceanDataLab produces 3 types of products:

1. “SMOS Near Real Time Level 2 swath wind speed” (SMOS L2WS NRT) products, which are SMOS retrieved surface wind speed gridded maps with a spatial sampling of 1/4°x 1/4° and consisting of orbital segments (containing parts of ascending and descending half orbits) following the granularity of the SMOS Level 1B near real time (NRT) brightness temperature data products. SMOS L2WS NRT products are available within 4 to 6 hours from sensing and are generated in NetCDF-4 format,

2. SMOS “wind radii fixes” (SMOS WRF) products. Using the Tropical Cyclones (TCs) best-track storm center and intensity forecasts from the Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecast System (ATCF) developed by Naval Research Laboratory, Marine Meteorology Division, SMOS L2 swath which interecepts current storms are determined. For interceptions with sufficient swath coverage, the processor produces SMOS WRF files generated in the so-called “Fix (F-deck)” ATCF format. The SMOS WRF “fixes” to the best-track forecasts contain: the SMOS 10-min maximum-sustained winds (in knots) and wind radii (in nautical miles) for the 34 kt (17 m/s), 50 kt (25 m/s), and 64 kt (33 m/s) winds per geographical storm quadrants and for each SMOS pass intercepting a TC in all the active ocean basins. SMOS WRF products are available within 4 to 6 hours from sensing and are generated in ASCII format.

3. the “SMOS Level 3 daily wind speed” (SMOS L3WS) products. SMOS L3WS products are daily composite maps of the collected SMOS L2 swath wind products for a specific day, provided with the same grid than the Level 2 wind data (SMOS L2WS NRT) but separated into ascending and descending passes. SMOS L3WS products are available the day after from sensing and are generated in NetCDF-4 format.

The detail to access the data and associated documentation are available here