Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; Ministery Of Infrastructure And The Environment

Updated @ 2024-12-30 06:40 utc
EARS ASCAT-C Coastal product
Product status: operationalEUMETSAT EARS system website
Ascending passes
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Descending passes
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Description
EUMETSAT EARS system websiteThe 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-C satellite, as described in the ASCAT Wind Product User Manual.

The processing is done in near-real time. In the context of this regional service, data are acquired locally by a network of AHRPT stations, located within the North Atlantic, Europe and Indian Ocean regions and processed jointly by the EARS ground system and KNMI. From the sensing time of the last measurement in a product, it takes approximately 15 minutes to get the corresponding wind product ready at KNMI. The timeliness is in line with the goals of the EARS service for products generated from satellite direct broadcast data.

This product in intended for nowcasting applications, where high timeliness and resolution are very important.

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.

Note: This web site is not supported on a 24x7 basis and it should not be considered operational.
Access to products
This wind product is available in BUFR format. The data are disseminated through the EUMETCast system; for access please contact EUMETSAT. The products are also available on a password protected FTP server (products of the last three days only). Contact the KNMI scatterometer team for access.

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.
Modifications/anomalies
12-Dec-2024 Update of ASCAT level 1b processing. A new land mask is used to compute the Land Contamination Ratio (LCR). The main impact of this update is an improvement of the land sea mask which corrects the location of some islands and other coastlines
08-Apr-2024 The ASCAT-C wind products have been unavailable on 8 April between 11:00 and 15:15 UTC sensing time due to an instrument anomaly.
28-Mar-2023 The EARS ASCAT winds have been unavailable between 25 March 9:30 and 28 March 8:00 UTC sensing time due to a ground segment anomaly.
16-Jan-2023 Introduction of Land Contamination Ratio in ASCAT input data. The minimum distance of winds to the coast is reduced from approximately 20 km to 10 - 15 km in the new products.
04-Oct-2022 Upgrade of wind processing chain in preparation of introduction of Land Contamination Ratio in ASCAT input data. AWDP version is 3_3_01.
14-Mar-2022 The ASCAT-C wind products have been unavailable on 14 Mar between 7:15 and 12:48 UTC sensing time due to an instrument anomaly.
23-Jan-2021 The ASCAT-C wind products have been unavailable on 22 Jan between 15:30 and 21:00 UTC sensing time due to an instrument anomaly.
02-Oct-2019 ASCAT-C winds have the operational status now. AWDP version is 3_2_03.
02-Sep-2019 The EARS ASCAT winds have been unavailable between 31 August 12:00 and 2 September 12:00 UTC due to a ground segment anomaly.
11-Apr-2019 The Metop-C EARS ASCAT are now available on EUMETCast.
28-Feb-2019 First development version of ASCAT-C regional wind product. AWDP version is 3_2_02.
Acknowledgements
KNMI hosts the operational deployment of this product as part of the EUMETSAT Advanced Retransmission Service (EARS), see related link or click on the EUMETSAT logo above for more information.

The processing software for the wind products is developed in the EUMETSAT Numerical Weather Prediction Satellite Application Facility (NWP SAF) and Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF).
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Background information
Near real time Wind Products
OSI SAF Wind Climate Data Records
Discontinued Wind Products
Software
R&D work
Projects
Related links