NODC Standard Product: US Navy Geosat wind/wave data (WWDR) from the Geodetic Mission (NODC Accession 0054150)

This accession contains a complete copy of the previous NODC CD-ROM for the Wind/Wave Data from the Geodetic Mission (revised) between March 31, 1985 and September 30, 1986.

The U.S. Navy Geodetic Satellite (Geosat) was designed and built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and launched in March 1985. The primary mission during the first 18 months was to map the marine gravity field for the U.S. Navy. After that mission was completed, the exact repeat mission was started to measure sea surface height, wind speed and significant wave height. Because the first 18 months of data (the Geodetic Mission, or GM) were classified, the wind and wave data were not readily available to the general research community. In 1988 the Navy released the radar backscatter (from which wind speed is derived) and the significant wave height data [Dobson et al., 1988]. This compact disc contains these data. In 1995 the Navy declassified the entire GM dataset, in the form of Geophysical Data Records (GDRs), but the wind/wave data on this disc are still unique in that the derived wind values are not available on the GDRs. Data are in binary format.