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Oceansat-2 Scatterometer (OSCAT) Data Products

Described in this page are the data products derived from the Oceansat-2 Scatterometer (OSCAT) observations, which include:

The OSCAT is a Ku-band conically scanning scatterometer system designed and built by the India Space Research Organization (ISRO)/Space Applications Center (SAC). OSCAT was launched aboard the Oceansat-2 satellite on September 23, 2009. The OSCAT ocean surface wind retrievals represent a 10 meter neutral stability wind. The OSCAT Level 1B and Level 2 products are provided to NOAA by ISRO on an orbit-by-orbit basis via EUMETSAT.

The NOAA OSCAT wind retrievals are processed with the Scatterometer Wind Data Processor (SWDP) developed at the NESDIS/Center for Satellite Applications and Research and utilizing the OSCAT L1B data provided by ISRO. The current geophysical model function (GMF) being used is derived from NSCAT-2 and was provided by the Scatterometer Project at the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where the GMF relates the normalized radar cross-section to the ocean surface wind speed and direction.

The wind vector retrievals flagged as potentially being contaminated by rain are colored in black. The current rain flag is under-flagging for rain. For closer examination of the wind fields, the global image is further divided into 30x20 degree bins between latitudes 80N to 80S and longitudes 180W to 180E, forming a HTML link map for the regions of interest. Just click on the desired geographical location and a closer look should be provided. The global wind images display the available data from the previous 22 hours up to the image creation time. Click here for the ocean surface winds from the near real-time (NRT) observation data.

OSCAT Ice Products

The daily ice image products are generated from the OSCAT Level 1B sigma0 data provided by ISRO. The images are produced using software that was developed as part of the NASA Scatterometer Climate Record Pathfinder Project (SCP) at Brigham Young University (BYU).

The ice products contains the most recent images covering the Antarctic, the Arctic, the Ross Ice Shelf, South Georgia Island and the Weddell Sea. The Antarctic and Arctic products typically span a 24-hour data period, while the other regions span a 38-hour period.

The coverage may vary due to delays in data availability or rev reprocessing. Current products include the h-pol average, the h-pol SIR(Scatterometer Image Reconstruction) and the ocean-masked image.

Details about how the scatterometer products are generated can be found at the: NASA Scatterometer Climate Record Pathfinder Project Homepage.

For additional information about ISRO or SAC, please visit...
http://www.isro.org/index.aspx
http://www.sac.gov.in

Data, algorithms, and images presented on STAR websites are intended for experimental use only and are not supported on an operational basis. Disclaimer details

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Site owner: STARContact webmaster • Revised: 12 April 2018 2:04 PM