Identification

Title

Wave and Anemometer-based Sea Surface Wind (WASWind)

Alternative title(s)

d232003

Abstract

<p>Ship-based measurements of sea surface wind speed displays a spurious upward trend due to increases in anemometer height. To correct this bias, we construct a new sea surface wind dataset from ship observations of wind speed and wind wave height archived in the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS). The Wave and Anemometer-based Sea-surface Wind (WASWind) dataset is available at monthly resolution on a 4 degrees by 4 degrees. longitude-latitude grid from 1950 to 2011. It substantially reduces the upward trend in wind speed through height-correction for anemometer-measured winds, rejection of spurious Beaufort winds, and use of estimated winds from wind wave height. The reduced upward trend is smallest among the existing global datasets of in situ observations and comparable with those of reanalysis products. Despite the significant reduction of globally-averaged wind speed trend, WASWind features rich spatial structures in trend pattern, making it a valuable dataset for studies of climate changes on regional scales. Not only does the combination of ship winds and wind wave height successfully reproduce major modes of seasonal-to-decadal variability, but its trend patterns are also physically consistent with sea level pressure (SLP) measurements. WASWind is in close agreement with wind changes in satellite measurements by the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) for the recent two decades. The agreement in trend pattern with such independent observations illustrates the utility of WASWind for climate trend analysis.</p>

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d232003/

protocol: https

name: Dataset Description

description: Related Link

function: information

https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d232003/dataaccess/

protocol: https

name: Data Access

description: Related Link

function: download

Unique resource identifier

code

codeSpace

Dataset language

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

oceans

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

dataset

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2021-03-30

Keyword set

keyword value

Ships

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2025-10-03

Keyword set

keyword value

EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN WINDS > WIND STRESS

EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN WINDS > SURFACE WINDS

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2025-10-03

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-180.0

East bounding longitude

180.0

North bounding latitude

90.0

South bounding latitude

-90.0

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

1950-01-16T0000+00

End position

2011-12-16T0000+00

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2012-12-10

Frequency of update

irregular

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

email address

datahelp@ucar.edu

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange

email address

datahelp@ucar.edu

web address

https://gdex.ucar.edu

name: NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange

description: The Geoscience Data Exchange (GDEX), managed by the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) at NSF NCAR, contains a large collection of meteorological, atmospheric composition, and oceanographic observations, and operational and reanalysis model outputs, integrated with NSF NCAR High Performance Compute services to support atmospheric and geosciences research.

function: download

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-10-09T01:21:49Z

Metadata language