The ASCAT U-Net cold-pool dataset.

The ASCAT U-Net Cold-Pool Dataset This dataset provides a global observational record of oceanic convective cold pools detected from Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) surface wind observations using a U-Net deep learning framework. Cold pools are density currents generated by precipitating convection that play a fundamental role in convective organization, mesoscale convective system evolution, precipitation propagation, and air–sea interactions. Despite their importance, continuous observational datasets of cold pools remain limited, particularly over the global oceans. The dataset is derived from ASCAT Level-2 ocean surface wind retrievals and applies a U-Net convolutional neural network to identify spatially coherent cold-pool signatures within scatterometer wind fields. Detected cold pools are subsequently converted into georeferenced polygon objects and gridded analysis products suitable for climatological studies, model evaluation, and investigations of convective organization. This Zenodo deposit contains two complementary products: 1. GeoPackage Object Dataset Monthly GeoPackage files containing vector representations of individual cold-pool objects detected from ASCAT observations. Each feature includes geometric, morphological, and quality-control information such as: Cold-pool polygon geometry (MultiPolygon) Observation time Feature area Centroid location Orbit and swath identifiers Dateline-crossing flags Swath-edge quality flags Connected-component identifiers The GeoPackage product preserves the object-based nature of cold pools and is intended for feature tracking, object statistics, and event-based analyses. 2. Gridded NetCDF Dataset Daily global gridded cold-pool fields provided on a 0.1° × 0.1° latitude–longitude grid. The gridded product includes sampling-aware information that distinguishes: No ASCAT observation Observed but no detected cold pool Detected cold-pool feature Each detected feature is linked to the object-based dataset through a unique feature identifier and accompanying lookup tables. Spatial and Temporal Coverage Current release: ASCAT-A: January 2019 – December 2020 ASCAT-B: December 2019 ASCAT-C: December 2019 Geographic coverage is global over the oceanic ASCAT observational domain. Applications Potential applications include: Tropical convection and mesoscale convective system studies Cold-pool climatologies Air–sea interaction research Convective organization analyses Numerical weather prediction evaluation Earth system model evaluation Satellite-based precipitation and convection studies Related Publication Garg, P., Nesbitt, S. W., Lang, T. J., Priftis, G., Chronis, T., Thayer, J. D., & Hence, D. A. (2020). Identifying and characterizing tropical oceanic mesoscale cold pools using spaceborne scatterometer winds. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 125(5), e2019JD031812. Citation Priftis, G. (2026). The ASCAT U-Net cold-pool dataset. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20562502