Sentinel-1 A and B satellites are part of Europe’s Copernicus Earth Observation program and carry identical C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instruments. Over open-ocean, they operate in wave mode and collect directional wave measurements globally. This dataset contains Sentinel-1 SAR directional ocean swell wave number spectra, spectral partitions and partition bulks in the Australasian region including the Pacific islands (note - this dataset also contains many along-track observations outside this region, and are included due to overlap with the region of interest), this mission has flown since 2014, with data delivered from July 2015. The data includes both delayed-mode and Near Real Time (NRT) data streams. Systematic surface wave acquisitions from Sentinel-1 began in July, 2015 with only Sentinel-1 A in orbit, and were increased with the addition of Sentinel-1 B, which started regular wave measurements from Oct, 2016. The delayed-mode data processed and delivered from Sentinel-1 platforms cover this time span through to Mar, 2022 and consists of daily netCDF files, while the NRT component of the dataset is producing a 6-hourly netCDF file for each platform (A and B) and includes data that has been acquired in (approximately) the previous 24 hours.
The data have been homogenised to a single, easily usable format from inconsistent source product by removing various discrepancies such as inconsistencies in wave number bins and values, variables and erroneous measurements over land.
The ongoing IMOS (Integrated Marine Observing System) Surface Waves Sub-Facility SAR wave database is available through the Australian Ocean Data Network Portal (Delayed-mode data - https://portal.aodn.org.au/search?uuid=4680a155-07af-46ac-b026-151c4ed4f6d5 and NRT - https://portal.aodn.org.au/search?uuid=d833de94-313d-41bd-9278-bc5813e29949), the main repository for marine data in Australia. The data represented by this metadata record is a snapshot of the database at the time of this publication (June 2022), and has been assigned a DOI and will be maintained in perpetuity by the AODN.