A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), operating at C-band like on Envisat, ERS-1 or ERS-2, offers the unique ability to provide continuous global directional information on wave field for various uses such as input to numerical weather prediction models (NWP) as well as ocean wave climate tools. Wave mode products correspond to small measurements called wave cells (or imagettes) which are approximately 5 km along-track by (up to) 10 km in across-track., acquired at 100 km (or 200 km for ERS) intervals.
SAR products summary
GlobWave SAR come in two different product lines, for which data from several SAR missions are or will provided :
- real-time products, available for still ongoing missions within a few hours after acquisition (usually about 4 hours) for operational applications such as wave forecasting
- geophysical products, available usually a few weeks or months (or years in case of reprocessing) after acquisition. These are the best quality data and should be used when real-time data are not necessary. The globwave archive for these products is updated every 6 months.
Geophysical products
|
Product Id |
Source L2 product |
Mission |
Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
|
GW_L2P_SAR_ERS1_GDR (soon) |
SAR_WVW_2P (ESA/Ifremer) |
ERS-1 |
1991 - 1996 |
|
GW_L2P_SAR_ERS2_GDR(soon) |
SAR_WVW_2P (ESA/Ifremer) |
ERS-2 |
1995 - 2003 |
|
GW_L2P_SAR_ENVI_GDR |
ASA_WVW_2P (ESA/Ifremer) |
Envisat |
10 Dec 2002 - 8 April 2012 |
Real-time products
|
Product Id |
Source L2 product |
Mission |
Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
|
GW_L2P_SAR_ENVI_NRT |
ASA_WVW_2P (ESA) |
Envisat |
03 Nov 2010 - 8 April 2012 |
How I do I get access to the data? The data is hosted on an ftp site. Username and password details can be obtained by e-mailing the CERSAT Help Desk at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject: GlobWave Data Access. We recommend that you consult sections 3 and 4.4.6 of the Product User Guide regarding essential information and known issues respectively. If you already have a username and password then you can browse the data on the ftp site by clicking here.