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Full catalog/ascatcpex
ascatcpex·v1·dataset

Ocean surface wind from radar (ASCAT, CPEX mission)

Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) CPEX
atmosphere NASA GHRC_DAAC Level 2 netCDF-3
In plain English

What it measures. Ocean surface wind speed and direction, plus the chance of sea ice, derived from how strongly the wind-roughened sea surface scattered radar signals back to the satellite.

How it's made. Produced from the ASCAT radar scatterometer aboard the MetOp-A and MetOp-B satellites, with data gathered specifically during the 2017 CPEX field campaign over the Atlantic and Caribbean.

How & where you'd use it. Supports research into how convective storms start, grow, and fade over tropical and subtropical oceans, and more broadly into ocean winds that drive weather.

What's measured

Atmosphere › Atmospheric Winds › Surface Winds › Wind DirectionAtmosphere › Precipitation › Atmospheric Precipitation IndicesAtmosphere › Atmospheric Winds › Surface WindsAtmosphere › Atmospheric Winds › Surface Winds › Wind Speed

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2017-05-24 → 2017-07-16
  • Measured byMETOP-B (ASCAT) · METOP-A (ASCAT)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent160.241, 3.9062, -25.0958, 42.5176
  • FormatsnetCDF-3
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

The Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) CPEX dataset consists of ice probability, wind speed, and wind direction estimates collected by the ASCAT. The ASCAT is onboard the MetOp-A and MetOp-B satellites and uses radar to measure the electromagnetic backscatter from the wind-roughened ocean surface, from which data on wind speed and direction can be derived. These data were gathered during the Convective Processes Experiment (CPEX) field campaign. CPEX collected data to help answer questions about convective storm initiation, organization, growth, and dissipation in the North Atlantic-Gulf of America-Caribbean Oceanic region during the early summer of 2017. These data files are available from May 24, 2017 through July 16, 2017 in netCDF-3 format.

Get the data

ascatcpex_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ascatcpex",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from GHRC_DAAC
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.