Calculate from level 1 or find ocean swell data in level 2 product

Microwave Toolbox
#1

Hello,

I would like to calculate ocean swell direction from S1 data. There is supposedly an OCN product that provides this but after a spatial query I can see no data in the Atlantic on the west coast of Ireland (do you have to request Level 2 products?)

OCN Swell

So I would like to generate this myself. This level 2 OCN product also contains the wind direction, and SNAP already has similar (identical?) tool implemented to calculate this from S1 - is there a way to calculate swell direction also?

Thanks,

Conor.

#2

For the time being L2 swell-data is only produced from wave-mode and stripmap-mode data, as explained in the link you posted. There are currently ongoing R&D-activities that aim to enable swell-retrieval from IW- and EW-mode data as well, so the situation should improve in the future, but not in the near future.

#3

Thanks for the quick reply Mengdahl. So what decides the geographic region that this dataset is created for and when? there seem to be some off the coast of Brittany/some at Rockall and that’s about it for the north atlantic.

#4

North Atlantic is covered by other modes, see the observation scenario here:

https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/missions/sentinel-1/observation-scenario

In practical terms wave-mode is on over the ocean where the other-modes aren’t, which is indicated by white-areas on the maps.

#5

Thanks mengdahl - i see what you mean, those maps are useful.

Wave Mode (WV) continuously operated over open oceans, with lower priority versus the high rate modes

but do they release the data for the white areas? I cannot see any on the datahub when i search in the oceans, only 10 or so near the US/Greenland and not the ‘leapfrog’ pattern they refer to in the userguide.