OSI SAF ASCAT 12.5-km product viewer

23-Oct-2011	Due to a Metop-A spontaneous payload switch-off, the ASCAT wind products have been unavailable between 22 October, 21:54 and 23 October, 15:45 UTC sensing time.
18-Oct-2011	The provision of ASCAT winds has been interrupted between 17 October 23:27 and 18 October 4:12 UTC sensing time due to a hardware problem at KNMI.
30-Sep-2011	Due to an issue in the level 1 backscatter data, no winds were available in the descending Metop passes between 29 September, 2:21 and 29 September 14:36 UTC.
29-Sep-2011	No winds have been available between 28 September, 11:36 and 29 September, 2:21 UTC due to a Metop out of plane manoeuvre.
05-Sep-2011	Due to an EUMETCast service interruption, the ASCAT winds have been unavailable between 4 September, 20:39 and 5 September, 2:42 UTC sensing time.
30-Aug-2011	The provision of ASCAT wind data has been delayed on 29 August, between 9:00 and 14:00 UTC due to a hardware problem at KNMI.
16-Aug-2011	AWDP version 2_1_00: up to four wind solutions present in the 12.5 km BUFR products, use of NWP Ocean Calibration for more uniform wind characteristics across the swath.
16-May-2011	ASCAT winds have been unavailable between 14 May, 10:51 and 16 May, 10:50 UTC due to an instrument anomaly.
28-Feb-2011	Both wind and soil moisture information are available in a multi-parameter BUFR product.
05-Jan-2011	ASCAT winds had reduced quality (wind speed bias approx. 0.5 m/s) and have been temporarily unavailable due to a problem in the ASCAT on-board power gain between 3 January, 3:30 and 4 January, 15:15 UTC.
06-Oct-2010	No winds have been available between 5 October, 11:38 and 6 October, 5:12 UTC due to a MetOp out of plane manoeuvre.
26-Apr-2010	ASCAT wind data were unavailable for instrument sensing times from 26 April, 8:15 to 10:48 UTC due to problems with the L1 data reception at KNMI.
26-Mar-2010	ASCAT data were unavailable for instrument sensing times from 26 March, 10:51 to 12:30 UTC.
20-Mar-2010	ASCAT data were unavailable for instrument sensing times from 19 March, 23:30 to 20 March, 06:24 UTC.
18-Feb-2010	No winds have been available between 18 February, 9:50 and 15:24 UTC due to a spontaneous ASCAT switch-off.
02-Feb-2010	OSI-SAF products disseminated on EUMETCast are also available to users in Africa and the Americas now.
12-Jan-2010	AWDP version 1_0_19: products in BUFR Edition 4 and up to four wind solutions used for ambiguity removal (only one solution present in BUFR products).
17-Sep-2009	No winds have been available between 17 September, 13:48 and 16:00 UTC due to a MetOp out of plane manoeuvre.
01-Sep-2009	AWDP version 1_0_18: wind products are available in NetCDF now on the KNMI FTP server.
30-Jul-2009	There have been problems with the overview images on the website which are solved now.
08-Jul-2009	Due to a local network switch problem at KNMI, wind products have been interrupted and delayed between 3:00 and 6:00 UTC.
21-Apr-2009	AWDP version 1_0_17: upgrades in BUFR encoding.
09-Feb-2009	ASCAT 12.5-km wind product will become available with the operational status on 3 March 2009.

Description

The ASCAT Wind Product contains measurements of the wind direction and wind speed above the sea surface. The measurements are obtained through the processing of scatterometer data originating from the ASCAT instrument on EUMETSAT's MetOp satellite, as described in the ASCAT Wind Product User Manual.

The processing is done in near-real time. From the sensing time of the last measurement in a product, it takes approximately 2 hours to get the corresponding wind product ready at KNMI.

The last 22 hours of data are shown in two separate plots showing ascending and descending tracks, respectively. This is done to avoid overlap of data in the pictures. Note that also data from previous days can be displayed using the link on the right hand side. The overview plots show color coded wind speed measurements. If you click somewhere in the satellite track, a picture appears showing the scatterometer winds in more detail.

Product monitoring information in near-real time is available through the corresponding link on the right hand side.

Access to products

This wind product is available in BUFR and NetCDF format. The BUFR data are disseminated through the EUMETCast system; for access please contact EUMETSAT. The products are also available on a password protected FTP server. Contact the KNMI OSI SAF team for access.

For a swift response management procedure, user requests on this scatterometer wind data product should be issued at the Ocean and Sea Ice SAF website.

Note: All intellectual property rights of the OSI SAF and EARS products belong to EUMETSAT. The use of these products is granted to every interested user, free of charge. If you wish to use these products, EUMETSAT's copyright credit must be shown by displaying the words "copyright (year) EUMETSAT" on each of the products used.

Acknowledgements

KNMI hosts the operational deployment of the global products as part of the EUMETSAT Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF), a project by Météo France, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, the Danish Meteorological Institute, the Swedish Meteorological Institute, Ifremer and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI).

The processing software for the KNMI wind product is developed within the framework of the Numerical Weather Prediction Satellite Application Facility (NWP SAF) sponsored by EUMETSAT.