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The Census of Marine Life was a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations engaged in a 10-year scientific initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans.  The world's first comprehensive census of the past, present, and future of life in the oceans was released in October 2010.

 

QuikSCAT Wind

QuikSCAT wind data

 QuikSCAT Wind

SeaWinds on QuikSCAT measures backscatter from the ocean surface (sigma0) used to derive vector wind stress as well as wind speed and direction.  The SeaWinds on QuikSCAT Level 3 data set consists of gridded values of scalar wind speed, meridional and zonal components of wind velocity, wind speed squared and time given in fraction of a day. Rain probability determined using the Multidimensional Histogram (MUDH) Rain Flagging technique is also included as an indicator of wind values which may have degraded accuracy due to the presence of rain. Data are currently available in Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) and exist from 19 July 1999 to present.

 

ref_quikscat.jpg

 

Use Example

Download an daily HDF file and convert to an ESRI GRID with ArcGIS.                          

  • Data Download: ftp://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/ocean_wind/quikscat/L3/data/2009/  

                 ftp://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/ocean_wind/quikscat/L3/data/2009/QS_XWGRD3_2009028.20090291346.gz

                file name convention QS_XWGRD3_YYYYDDD.YYYYDDDHHMM[GMT].gz  

                Export HDF header using Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools -> Data Management -> HDF Files -> Extract HDF header

                Subdatasets within are:

                        ascending and descending (overpass) speed: asc_avg_wind_speed, des_avg_wind_speed

                        ascending and descending (overpass) U component: asc_avg_wind_vel_u, des_avg_wind_vel_u

                        ascending and descending (overpass) V component: asc_avg_wind_vel_v, des_avg_wind_vel_v

                  In ArcGIS Toolbox find Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools -> Conversion -> to ArcGIS raster -> from HDF SDS -> Convert SDS in HDF to ArcGIS Raster               

                  Enter the HDF file name to convert and raster output file name

                        Use the following parameters:

                        SDS name: asc_avg_wind_speed

                        X coordinate of LL corner: -180

                        Y coordinate of LL corner: -90

                        Cell size: 0.25

                        pre-conversion processing: check "Swap Hemispheres" and "Flip"

                        post-conversion processing: input the follow scaling equation in the "Execute map algebra expression": inputRaster * .01

 

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