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Full catalog/MWOW_L3_EPI_V0.1
MWOW_L3_EPI_V0.1·v0.1·dataset

Ocean surface wind speed and direction, every 6 hours

MWOW 6-Hourly Global Ocean Wind with Expanded Platform Inputs Level 3 Version 0.1
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 3 active netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Ocean surface wind speed and direction across the globe, every 6 hours, on a fine grid of about 0.125 degrees. Rather than blending sources, it keeps each instrument's observations separate.

How it's made. Harmonized from a mix of satellite instruments (five scatterometers, one radiometer, and one synthetic aperture radar) into a common format. This is an early version 0 intended mainly for stakeholder assessment.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for studying ocean winds and feeding wind data into weather and ocean models, with the caveat that it is still an early, pre-release product.

What's measured

OCEANS › OCEAN WINDS › SURFACE WINDS › WIND DIRECTIONOCEANS › OCEAN WINDS › SURFACE WINDS › WIND SPEED

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2023-01-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byMETOP-B (ASCAT) · METOP-C (ASCAT) · IRS E06 (SCAT-3) · SMAP (SMAP L-BAND RADIOMETER) · SWOT (KaRIn) · HY2-B (SCATTEROMETERS) · HY2-C (SCATTEROMETERS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • 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 6-hourly, global gridded wind speed and direction at 0.125 degree horizontal resolution from the MWOW (Multi-sensor Worldwide Ocean Winds) Project. It is a harmonized wind product combining retrievals from a variety of satellite-based instruments, including five scatterometers, one radiometer, and one synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for the Version 0.1 product. Data are available in netCDF format, with one file for each 6-hour timestep. Note that data from the instruments are not aggregated together to create a composite wind map for each timestep. Rather, observations from each instrument are kept separate, split over the “time” dimension. Further, any observations from the same instrument that overlap spatially in the 6-hour window are also reported as separate observations along this time dimension. This “Expanded Platform Input” product is similar to the MWOW_L3_V0.1 product (DOI 10.5067/MWOW-6H-V01) with additional data inputs from scatterometers aboard the Hai Yang 2B and 2C satellites. Version 0 of these data include an initial bulk ingest of data in January 2026 with forward streaming planned for later in the year. Version 0 is primarily meant for assessment by stakeholders, with future versions likely to incorporate feedback from the stakeholders. No User Guide is planned for this version, although the data are considered science quality. Interested users looking for more information are encouraged to contact the data producer. The MWOW Project is funded by NASA’s Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG) which provides data products developed to meet the needs of stakeholders from US government agencies.

Get the data

mwow_l3_epi_v0.1_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MWOW_L3_EPI_V0.1",
    version="0.1",
    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.