View All Pages
Front Page

NOAA CoastWatch Tutorial On Ocean Satellite Data Products and Tools

IOCS meeting - 13 November 2023, 9 am - 12 pm

 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) CoastWatch / OceanWatch /PolarWatch program (CoastWatch Links to an external site.) provides environmental satellite products to help understand, manage and protect ocean and coastal resources.

CoastWatch offers several levels of service to users, including the easy discovery and download of satellite data products, productivity tools to assist with data processing, and tutorials and training. CoastWatch provides free and open access to these ocean products through a variety of platforms. However, identifying and using satellite data products appropriate for a given application can be challenging for users outside of the satellite community, resulting in underutilized ocean satellite data in both research and operational oceanography. The goal of the NOAA CoastWatch program is to build capacity in using satellite data by providing background knowledge, tools, tutorials and hands-on help to
users.

Products available include Sea Surface Temperature, Ocean Color (chlorophyll-a concentration, light attenuation, …), Altimetry (sea level height anomalies, geostrophic currents), Synthetic Aperture Radar, Ocean Vector Winds, Sea Ice, Sea Surface Salinity, and various types of imagery.

This tutorial session will include:

1. Introduction to the NOAA CoastWatch program and ocean satellite products
             presentation: Training Overview
2. Overview of data services available through CoastWatch
3. Demonstration of the CoastWatch Data Portal Links to an external site.
4. Demonstration of ERDDAP Links to an external site.
             content: ERDDAP
5. Introduction of the CoastWatch Utilities Links to an external site.
             content: CoastWatch Utilities

6. Hands-on tutorial on the CoastWatch Utilities

 

Workshop Objectives:

  1. Get familiar with CoastWatch as a data provider
  2. Get familiar with various data access options
  3. Get familiar with selected tools 

 

Instructions:

Participants will need to bring their own laptop. 

Pre-course Downloads:

NOAA CoastWatch

  • Download and install the CoastWatch Utilities from the CoastWatch Central Operations website Links to an external site..  There are separate packages for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  The command line tools in the software are more easily used if you also set the command line path (see Chapter 1 in the CoastWatch Utilities User's Guide Download CoastWatch Utilities User's Guide on how to do that).  The course material is based on version 3.7.1 of the software released in July, 2022, but a more recent version can also be used.
  • Download and extract (unzip) the Sample Data Files Download Sample Data Files (280 MB) that contains all the sample data for the course.  Inside the ZIP file is a table of contents that describes all the data files — we'll use a subset of the data files in each unit:
    • Aquaculture_polygons.shp        - Sample ESRI polygon shapefile (Sardinia and Corsica)
      Aquaculture_region.hdf            - Projection master template for aquaculture company
      Hexagon_50km_length.shp            - Sample ESRI polygon shapefile (Gulf of Mexico)
      NOAAOceanColorMasks.jso            - Ocean color L2 flags saved overlays
      NOAAOceanColorMasksNCgroups.jso        - Ocean color L2 flags saved overlays (groups version)
      example_ahi_sst_feb_2023.hdf        - Visible band reflectance and sea surface temperature (Japan)
      example_altim_surface_curr_feb_2023.nc    - Global sea surface currents
      example_amsr_ice_conc_jan_2022.nc    - Ice concentration (Jan)
      example_amsr_ice_conc_jul_2022.nc    - Ice concentration (Jul)
      example_ascat_wind_mar_2023.nc        - Global sea surface winds
      example_avhrr_swath_sst_sep_2022.nc    - Sea surface temperature (Red Sea / Mediterranean)
      example_goci2_reflect_jan_2023.hdf    - Visible band reflectance (Korea)
      example_olci_rad_sep_2022.hdf        - Visible band radiance (Australia)
      example_smap_salinity_apr_??_2023.nc    - Global sea surface salinity files (7 days)
      example_viirs_chlor_flags_oct_2022.hdf    - Chlorophyll-a concentration (Hawaii)
      example_viirs_chlor_sep_2022.nc        - Global chlorophyll-a concentration
      example_viirs_swath_sst_apr_2023.nc    - Sea surface temperature (Atlantic / Mediterranean)
      sst_process.bat                - SST data processing batch file for Windows
      sst_process.sh                - SST data processing batch file for Unix