NOAA/NCEI Blended Global Sea Surface Winds, Version 2

The NBSv2.0 dataset synthesizes observations from multiple satellites (up to 16 satellites since 1987) to create globally gridded, high-resolution 10 m neutral ocean wind speeds and wind stress components. The wind directions come from two sources depending on the products: for the research delayed mode product, the source is the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts ERA5 and for the near-real-time products, the source is the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) GFS. This is an updated version of the existing NOAA NBS v1.0, which is a global gridded 0.25 degree and 6-hourly/daily/monthly sea surface winds product that has wide applications in marine transportation, marine ecosystem and fisheries, offshore winds, weather and ocean forecasts, and other areas. A Climatological mean or WMO 30-year Normals are also generated for this product. This newly developed version 2 shows improvement (over its predecessor version 1.0) in following aspects: Resolving very high winds associated with Cyclones/Hurricanes, A gap-free global spatial coverage, Better improved algorithm and coded with open source Python reducing the computational clock time by 10x, and A near-real time production. The data are available in netCDF format for the period of record, July 1987 to present, with six-hourly, daily, and monthly time resolutions for both the blended Sea Surface Wind (SSW) as well as SSW stress data.

[
  "https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.935549",
  "https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/blending-multi-satellite-data-improve-hurricane-forecasting",
  "https://coastwatch.noaa.gov/cwn/products/noaa-ncei-blended-seawinds-nbs-v2.html"
]