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Full catalog/SENTINEL-1A_OCN
SENTINEL-1A_OCN·v1·dataset

Ocean wind and wave info from radar (Sentinel-1A)

Sentinel-1A Ocean Product
ocean NASA ASF Level 2 active
In plain English

What it measures. Ocean surface conditions derived from radar — including wind speed and direction near the surface, the pattern of large swell waves, and how fast the surface is moving toward or away from the satellite.

How it's made. Generated from radar imagery captured by Europe's Sentinel-1A satellite, then processed into geophysical ocean estimates (which components are available depends on how the radar was operating).

How & where you'd use it. Useful for tracking ocean winds, waves, and currents to support marine forecasting, shipping, and ocean research.

What's measured

OCEANS › OCEAN WINDSOCEANS › OCEAN WAVES › SWELLSOCEANS › OCEAN CIRCULATION

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2014-04-03 → ongoing
  • Measured bySentinel-1A (C-SAR)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • 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

Sentinel-1A, the first satellite in the Sentinel-1 constellation, was launched April 3, 2014. The Sentinel-1 satellites (Sentinel-1A, Sentinel-1B, and Sentinel-1C) are sun-synchronous polar-orbiting satellites that operate day and night performing C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging. The Sentinel-1 satellites operate in four imaging modes with different resolutions (down to 5 meters) and coverage (up to 400 kilometers). The Sentinel-1 satellites provide dual polarization capability and short revisit times. Sentinel-1A Level 2 Ocean (OCN) are geolocated geophysical products derived from the Sentinel -1C Single Look Complex (SLC) and Ground Range Detected (GRD) products. OCN products for wind, wave and currents applications may contain the following geophysical components derived from the SAR data: Ocean Wind field (OWI) Ocean Swell spectra (OSW) Surface Radial Velocity (RVL) The availability of components depends on the acquisition mode. The metadata referring to OWI are derived from an internally processed GRD product, the metadata referring to RVL and OSW are derived from an internally processed SLC product. The OWI component is a ground range gridded estimate of the surface wind speed and direction at 10 m above the surface, derived from SM, IW or EW modes. The data products in this collection mirror the Sentinel-1A products provided through the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem.

Get the data

sentinel-1a_ocn_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SENTINEL-1A_OCN",
    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 ASF
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.