CoAuthors

Fabrice Collard (Oceandatalab, France); Manuel Lopez Radcenco (Oceandatalab, France); Frédéric Nougier (Ifremer, France); Jean-François Piollé (Ifremer, France)

SWIM instrument onboard CFOSAT wind and wave satellite is measuring the ocean surface wave related modulations in Ku band using a rotating instrument that provides a directional 1D wave spectra every 7 degrees for each of its 5 beams at 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10° incidence angles, resulting in a very special cycloid ground footprint geometry. The L2S SWIM product is a level 2 product that provides the wave spectra along this cycloid for all the 5 non-nadir beams. Details about this L2S product geometry, content, format and access point, including the specific algorithms behind will be discussed. Exploiting this continuous measurements along this cycloid allows to estimate wave systems properties at the highest possible resolution of about 20 km.
Application of this L2S product for swell tracking across the ocean basins will be demonstrated and compared to Sentinel1 wave mode complementary capabilities. And preliminary statistical comparisons between L2S results and WW3 model will also be shown.