Source/sensor: DMSP SSM/I, ECMWF model

Coverage: July 1987-June 1988, global

Abstract: This oceans data product consists of sensible and latent heat fluxes, and wind stress components. Wind vectors resulting from a variational analysis of SSM/I wind speeds (see product #44) were combined with surface temperature and moisture data from ECMWF to calculate fluxes at the ocean-atmosphere interface. The algorithm employed in the flux estimates uses the similarity theory of Monin-Obukhov and is described in Helfand and Labraga (1988). The data was produced by R.Atlas, J. Jusem and J. Ardizonne at the Goddard Space Flight Center. The fluxes were calculated every 6 hours for the period July 1987 to June 1988 and then monthly averaged. Extensions will be made as SSM/I data becomes available. All data sets contain sensible and latent heat flux (W/M**2), and U and V wind stress components (N/M**2) on a 2 degree latitude by 2.5 degree longitude grid configured as follows:

rdata(i,j)

i = 1,2,...,144 ==> lon = -180.0,-177.5,...,177.5

j = 1,2,...,91 ==> lat = -90.0,-88.0,...,90.0

Data is available via anonymous FTP (binary mode) to podaac.jpl.nasa.gov or on tape in the Iris Data Format (IDF). IDF makes use of IEEE 2-byte integers and should be easily read on machines adhering to IEEE standards. Documentation and software are available on-line. Each file contains one set of monthly averaged fields and occupies approximately 100K bytes. Comments:These data are also available via anonymous FTP to podaac.jpl.nasa.gov in the pub/heat_flux/ssmi directory.

Data Set Volume: Approximately 140 MB

Smallest order: Entire data set unless accessed via FTP

Formats: IDF in Tar format