Update to the NOAA NCEI Blended Global Sea Surface Winds Product and Services

The NOAA/NCEI Blended Sea Winds dataset contains globally gridded, high-resolution ocean surface vector winds on a global 0.25° grid and time resolution of 6-hourly, from which daily and monthly means and for other lower resolutions can be computed. The period of record is July 9, 1987, to present with quasi-daily update. Blending multiple-satellite observations (up to six satellites since June 2002) fills in the data gaps (in both time and space) of the individual satellite samplings and reduces the subsampling aliases and random errors. The wind directions come from two sources depending on the products: for the research delayed mode product, the source is the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Reanalysis 2 (NRA-2) and for the near-real-time products, the source is the numerical weather prediction of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. The user-friendly web interfaces and data formats have extended the product's wide user communities, such as applications in marine transportation safety and efficiency (e.g. near-real-time ship routing services), near-real-time use in NOAA's world Coral Reef Watch of bleaching conditions, in offshore renewable energy research and assessment, applications in ecosystem and fisheries, ocean engineering, infrastructure and environmental services, marine and weather forecasting, among others. In this presentation, we provide an update on this blended sea winds product and services.