Concept information
Preferred term
SEAWINDS
Definition
- The SeaWinds scatterometer is a specialized microwave radar that measures near-surface wind velocity (both speed and direction) under all weather and cloud conditions over Earth's oceans. This is a twin sister to the QuikSCAT sensor and it was launched onboard the Japanese ADEOS-II Spacecraft on December 14, 2002 to provide similar observations beyond the QuikSCAT mission. The experiment is a follow-on mission and continues the data series initiated in 1996 by the NSCAT. SeaWinds is a part of the Earth Observing System (EOS) which is designed to address global environmental changes, and is a joint mission with the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA). Winds are a critical factor in determining regional weather patterns and climate. Oceans cover 70 percent of Earth's surface, and as the only remote-sensing system to provide accurate, frequent, high-resolution measurements of ocean surface wind velocities, under all weather conditions, scatterometers play an increasingly important role in oceanographic, meteorological and climate studies. As part of the SeaWinds Project, NASA sponsors a team of scientific investigators who advised the project during the development of the instrument and ground data processing system. The science team will conduct research with SeaWinds data; their studies are expected to lead to improved methods of global weather forecasting and modeling. The SeaWinds Project is managed for NASA's Earth Science Enterprise by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology. For more information on SeaWinds, see: "http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/seawinds/seaindex.html" For more information on Earth Science Enterprise, see: "http://earth.nasa.gov/" (en)
Broader concept
- S - U (en)
URI
https://gcmd.earthdata.nasa.gov/kms/concept/c4f03497-bef3-4d76-b947-f93fdf9c9a38
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