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Full catalog/RSS_WindSat_L1C_TB_V08.0
RSS_WindSat_L1C_TB_V08.0·v8.0·dataset

Raw microwave brightness for wind and water (WindSat)

RSS WindSat L1C Calibrated TB Version 8
land NASA POCLOUD Level 1C netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Records how much microwave energy rises off the ocean and atmosphere at several frequencies, the basic signal a satellite uses to figure out ocean surface wind speed and direction. The numbers are 'brightness temperatures' — essentially how warm the surface looks to a microwave sensor.

How it's made. Built from the WindSat radiometer on the U.S. Navy's Coriolis satellite, with the raw readings corrected for instrument quirks and laid onto a fixed map grid.

How & where you'd use it. This is a low-level building-block product: scientists who study ocean winds, weather and the sea surface use it mainly as an input to higher-level wind and water products rather than reading it directly.

What's measured

SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › RADAR › RADAR CROSS-SECTION › BISTATIC RADAR CROSS-SECTIONSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › RADAR › RADAR REFLECTIVITY › ZENITH SIGNAL POWERATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC WINDS › SURFACE WINDSOCEANS › OCEAN WINDS › WIND VELOCITY/SPEED

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2003-02-01 → 2020-10-19
  • Measured byCORIOLIS (WINDSAT)
  • Processing levelLevel 1C
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

The WindSat Polarimetric Radiometer, launched on January 6, 2003 aboard the Department of Defense Coriolis satellite, was designed to measure the ocean surface wind vector from space. It developed by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Remote Sensing Division and the Naval Center for Space Technology for the U.S. Navy and the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Integrated Program Office (IPO). The dataset contains the Level 1C WindSat Top of the Atmosphere (TOA) TB processed by RSS. The WindSat radiances are turned into TOA TB after correction for hot and cold calibration anomalies, receiver non-linearities, sensor pointing errors, antenna cross-polarization contamination, spillover, Faraday rotation and polarization alignment. The data are resampled on a fixed regular 0.125 deg Earth grid using Backus-Gilbert Optimum Interpolation. The sampling is done separately for fore and aft looks. The 10.7, 18.7, 23.8, 37.0 GHz channels are resampled to the 10.7 GHz spatial resolution. The 6.8 GHz channels are given at their native spatial resolution. The 10.7, 18.7, 23.8, 37.0 GHz channels are absolutely calibrated using the GMI sensor as calibration reference. The 6.8 GHz channels are calibrated using the open ocean with the RSS ocean emission model and the Amazon rain forest as calibration targets. The Faraday rotation angle (FRA) and geometric polarization basis rotation angle (PRA) were added in the last run.

Get the data

rss_windsat_l1c_tb_v08.0_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="RSS_WindSat_L1C_TB_V08.0",
    version="8.0",
    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.