Short Name:
QSCAT_LEVEL_2A_COMP_12

SeaWinds on QuikSCAT Level 2A Surface-flagged Sigma-0 in 12.5km Wind Vector Cell Slice Composites

The SeaWinds on QuikSCAT Level 2A Surface-flagged Sigma-0 in 12.5km Wind Vector Cell Slice Composites are processed using the pulse Sigma-0 data provided by the Level 1B product. Unlike NSCAT, the expected number of Sigma-0 cells per WVC is not constant, due to the circular scan of the SeaWinds instrument. To minimize the L2A data volume, the Sigma-0 cell data are stored as "lists" for each WVC row, with each list indexed by a "cell_index" array to indicate the cross-track WVC membership of the data. Each cell is then checked for land or ice and flagged accordingly. Attenuation corrections for each Sigma-0 measurement are also provided. Quality Assurance files are also included to verify the quality of the L2A processing. Data are provided in single-orbit files. Special note: QuikSCAT went into a "non-spinning" mode on 22 November 2009. The final rev number in the nominal Operational "spinning" mode is 54296; the "non-spinning" mode of the instrument continued predominantly for the remainder of QuikSCAT operations. There were some brief periods of "spinning" in year 2013, which include the following days and rev numbers (identified in parenthesis): 1) 29 January to 5 February (7909-71011), 2) 14 March (71536-71549), 3) 18 March to 21 March (71590-71634), and 4) 28 March to 31 March (71735-71769).

Map of Earth