Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/CCMP_WINDS_10MMONTHLY_L4_V3.1
CCMP_WINDS_10MMONTHLY_L4_V3.1·v3.1·dataset

Ocean surface wind speed and direction, monthly

RSS CCMP Monthly 10 Meter Surface Winds Level 4 Version 3.1
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 4 active netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Monthly maps of ocean surface wind speed and direction across nearly the whole globe, at quarter-degree resolution, including how winds differ from normal.

How it's made. Created by the CCMP project, which blends carefully cross-calibrated wind readings from many satellites with a background weather-model field, packaged as one file per month.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for studying ocean winds and weather patterns, driving ocean and climate models, and tracking long-term changes in wind over the seas.

What's measured

OCEANS › OCEAN WINDS › SURFACE WINDS › OCEAN SURFACE WIND VECTORSOCEANS › OCEAN WINDS › SURFACE WINDS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1993-01-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byTRMM (TMI) · DMSP 5D-3/F15 (SSM/I) · DMSP 5D-2/F8 (SSM/I) · Aqua (AMSR-E) · GCOM-W1 (AMSR2) · DMSP 5D-3/F16 (SSMIS) · QUIKSCAT (SEAWINDS) · GPM (GMI) · DMSP 5D-2/F14 (SSM/I) · DMSP 5D-2/F10 (SSM/I) · CORIOLIS (WINDSAT) · DMSP 5D-2/F11 (SSM/I) · DMSP 5D-3/F17 (SSMIS) · DMSP 5D-2/F13 (SSM/I) · METOP-A (ASCAT) · METOP-B (ASCAT)
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • Spatial extent-180, -80, 180, 80
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Watch sea-surface temperature and marine heatwaves
  • Spot algal blooms and ocean-colour shifts
  • Support fisheries and coastal monitoring
Official description

This data set contains a monthly-mean, 0.25 degree resolution, near-global gridded analysis of ocean surface winds (wind speed, components, and anomalies) from the Cross-Calibrated Multi-Platform (CCMP) project. CCMP is a combination of inter-calibrated 10 m ocean surface wind retrievals from multiple types of satellite microwave sensors and a background field from reanalysis. The wind retrievals are derived by Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and include most of the wind-sensing U.S., Japanese, and European satellites flown to date. The background field is from ERA5 10m Neutral Stability winds. The result is a product that remains closely tied to the satellite retrievals where they are available and closely collocated in time and space. Data files are available in netCDF format, with one file per month. Version 3.1 updates include but are not limited to: (1) Improved performance and agreement with satellite winds at high wind speed, (2) Minimized spurious trends caused by the interaction between the amount of satellite measurements available and the satellite/model biases, and (3) improving the quality of the wind after 2012. Version 3.1 is produced and maintained by RSS with support from a NASA grant (ROSES proposal 17-OVWST-17-0023). Previous versions were funded by the NASA Making Earth Science data records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program, with the original V1.0 led by Dr. Robert Atlas at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Get the data

ccmp_winds_10mmonthly_l4_v3.1_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="CCMP_WINDS_10MMONTHLY_L4_V3.1",
    version="3.1",
    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 POCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.