Wind speed over sea surface (horizontal) Measurements Made by Earth Observation Satellites

CEOS EO HANDBOOK – MEASUREMENT INSTRUMENTS

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Wind speed over sea surface (horizontal)

Measurement Definition*: Horizontal vector component (2D) of the 3D wind vector over the sea surface - Physical unit: [ m/s ] - Accuracy unit: [ m/s ] intended as vector error, i.e. the module of the vector difference between the observed vector and the true vector.

Instrument	Status/ Accuracy	Instrument Description	Measurement Technology	Timeline
AltiKa Ka-band Altimeter	Operational	Sea surface height.	n/a
AMSR2 Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2	Operational +/-1.1 m/s	Measurements of water vapour, cloud liquid water, precipitation, winds, sea surface temperature, sea ice concentration, snow cover, soil moisture.	n/a
AMSU-A Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A	Operational	All-weather night-day temperature sounding to an altitude of 45 km.	n/a
AMSU-A Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A	Operational	All-weather night-day temperature sounding to an altitude of 45 km. AMSU-A on Aqua is still partially operational, with 9 of the 15 channels working and collecting data.	n/a
ASCAT Advanced Scatterometer	Operational	Measures wind speed and direction over ocean, soil moisture, sea ice cover, sea ice type, snow cover and snow parameters and vegetation parameters	n/a
ATMS Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder	Operational	Collects microwave radiance data that when combined with the CrIS data will permit calculation of atmospheric temperature and water vapour profiles.	n/a
C-Band SAR C-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar	Operational	Marine core services, land monitoring and emergency services. Monitoring sea ice zones and arctic environment. Surveillance of marine environment, monitoring land surface motion risks, mapping of land surfaces (forest, water and soil, agriculture), mapping in support of humanitarian aid in crisis situations.	n/a
COWVR Compact Ocean Wind Vector Radiometer	Operational	Hosted on the ISS, COWVR measures the direction and speed of winds at the ocean surface	n/a
DDMI (CYGNSS) Delay Doppler Mapping Instrument (DDMI)	Operational +/-2 m/s	Constellation of bistatic radar receivers using GPS satellite transmitters to detect ocean surface roughness and estimate near-surface wind speed from calm sea through hurricane force conditions and under all levels of precipitation.	n/a
GMI GPM Microwave Imager	Operational	Measures rainfall rates over oceans and land, combined rainfall structure and surface rainfall rates with associated latent heating. Used to produce three hour, daily, and monthly total rainfall maps over oceans and land.	n/a
GNSS-R Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry	Operational	The core technology of GNSS-R is based on an indigenous space grade GPS receiver. One direct signal and eight reflected GNSS signals can be received and processed simultaneously in GNSS-R. In addition, the GNSS source is programmable. A nadir pointing antenna to measure surface reflection of GPS and GLONASS signals.	n/a
MTVZA-GY Scanning microwave imager-sounder	Operational	Atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles, precipitation, sea-level wind speed, snow/ice coverage.	n/a
MWRI Micro-Wave Radiation Imager	Operational	All weather observations of precipitation, cloud features, vegetation, soil moisture sea ice, etc.	n/a
MWRI Microwave Radiometer Imager	Operational	Ocean wind and temperature measurements.	n/a
POSEIDON-3B Altimeter Positioning Ocean Solid Earth Ice Dynamics Orbiting Navigator (Single frequency solid state radar altimeter)	Operational	Nadir viewing sounding radar for provision of real-time high precision sea surface topography, ocean circulation and wave height data.	n/a
POSEIDON-3C Altimeter Positioning Ocean Solid Earth Ice Dynamics Orbiting Navigator (Single frequency solid state radar altimeter)	Operational	Nadir viewing sounding radar for provision of real-time high precision sea surface topography, ocean circulation and wave height data.	n/a
Poseidon-4 Altimeter Poseidon-4 SAR Radar Altimeter	Operational	Nadir viewing sounding radar for provision of real-time high-precision sea surface topography, ocean circulation and wave height data.	n/a
SAR (RADARSAT-2) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) C band	Operational	All-weather images of ocean, ice and land surfaces. Used for monitoring of coastal zones, polar ice, sea ice, sea state, geological features, vegetation and land surface processes.	n/a
SAR (RCM) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) C band	Operational	All-weather, C-band data to support ecosystem monitoring, maritime surveillance and disaster management.	n/a
SAR-L L-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar	Operational	Land, ocean, emergencies, soil moisture, interferometry, others.	n/a
SCAT Scatterometer	Operational	Monitoring global sea surface winds.	n/a
SGR-ReSI-CDHS Space GNSS Receiver - Remote Sensing Instrument, CoreDHS avionics	Operational	Ocean winds, waves, soil moisture, flooding, ice, snow. Similar to SGR-ReSI-Z, but with a smaller Zynq, and only supports 2 RF channels, only allowing collection of single frequency and single polarisation.	n/a
SRAL SAR Radar Altimeter	Operational	Marine and land services.	n/a
WindRAD Wind Radar	Operational	Measures sea-surface wind.	n/a
AMSR3 Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 3	Being developed	Measurements of water vapour, cloud liquid water, precipitation including snowfall, winds, sea surface temperature, sea ice concentration, snow cover, soil moisture.	n/a
IRIS Interferometric Radar Altimeter for Ice and Snow	Being developed	Ku-band Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter (with added Ka-band channel for snow depth retrieval and in combination with AMR-CR MW Radiometer for ice&snow classification and wet troposphere correction) to cover the needs for continuous monitoring of sea ice thickness and land ice elevation measurement after Cryosat-2, with enhanced performance.	n/a
MWI Microwave Imager	Being developed	Measure cloud liquid water content, solid/liquid precipitation information, total column water vapour and temperature profiles, sea ice parameters, sea surface temperature, sea surface wind speed.	n/a
MWS Microwave Sounder	Being developed	All-weather night-day temperature sounding	n/a
Poseidon-5 Altimeter Poseidon-5 SAR Radar Altimeter	Being developed		n/a
SAOOH Swath Altimeter for Oceanography and Operational Hydrology	Being developed		n/a
SCA SCA	Being developed	Measures wind speed and direction over ocean, soil moisture, sea ice cover, sea ice type, snow cover and snow parameters and vegetation parameters	n/a
SGR-ReSI-Z Space GNSS Receiver - Remote Sensing Instrument (Zynq based)	Being developed +/-2 m/s	Ocean winds, waves, soil moisture, flooding, ice, snow	n/a
MTVZA-GY-MP Advanced Scanning microwave imager-sounder	Proposed	Atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles, precipitation, sea-level wind speed, snow/ice coverage.	n/a
AMSR-E Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS	No longer operational +/-1.5 m/s	Measurements of water vapour, cloud liquid water, precipitation, winds, sea surface temperature, sea ice concentration, snow cover and soil moisture. Instrument stopped functioning 4th October 2011.	n/a

* Description adapted from WMO.