SSM/I Radiometer(s) Data Products

Described in this page are the data products derived from the SSM/I Radiometer(s), which include:

The SSMI products of ocean surface winds at the height of 19.5m are calculated from the ascending and descending satellite passes of SSM/I. The SSM/I brightness temperatures used are those calculated by the Navy at the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC).

The wind speed algorithm used was developed by Goodberlet et al., and expresses the wind speed, WS, in meters/second as

WS=147.90+1.0969*TB19v-0.4555*TB22v-1.7600*TB37v+0.7860*TB37h

where, TB is the radiometric brightness temperature at the frequencies and polarizations indicated. All data where TB37v-TB37hr < 50 or TB19h > 165 was rain flagged.

Please Note: The strictest rain flag is being used to yield wind speeds within 2m/s. Also, this web site is not maintained with 24x7 support.

For closer examination of the wind fields, a global data image is further divided into 30x20 degree bins between latitudes 80N to 80S and longitudes 180W to 180E. Just click on the desired geographical location,and hopefully a closer look will be provided for the specific region of your interest.

The images may contain data up to 22 hours previous from update time. Click here for the ocean surface winds from the near real-time (NRT) observation data. Please read the product release notes and this note concerning the near real-time SSM/I wind products.

Details of orbit data files that go into the plots can be found here.