Copernicus Global In-situ Observations of Ocean Currents - Radar Radial

Dataset Provider

Copernicus

Earth Engine Snippet

ee.FeatureCollection.loadBigQueryTable('earth-engine-public-data.insitu_nrt_currents.radar_radial_latest')

Tags

copernicus currents insitu marine ocean oceans radar

Description

The In Situ TAC is a distributed centre organized around 7 oceanographic regions: the global ocean and the 6 EUROGOOS regional alliances. It involves 14 partners from 11 countries in Europe. It doesn't deploy any observing system and relies on data, exclusively funded by other sources than Copernicus Marine Service.

This dataset contains sea surface current observations from High-Frequency (HF) radars. Sea surface currents measured by HF radar are an average over the top 0.3-2.5 m of the water column, depending on the operating central frequency.

This dataset provides radial velocity components. It comprises gridded maps of radial velocity fields of the surface current averaged over a time interval. Radial velocities are measured on a polar grid and then remapped onto a Cartesian grid. The final product is a map of the zonal and meridional components of the radial ocean currents on a regular grid in the area covered by the individual radar stations.

For more details refer to this user manual

BigQuery Table Schema

Table Schema

Name	Type	Description
TIME	DATETIME	Datetime of the observation
LATITUDE	DOUBLE	Latitude of the observation
LONGITUDE	DOUBLE	Longitude of the observation
DEPTH	DOUBLE	Number of depth levels
RNGE	DOUBLE	Range (away from the instrument) of the measurement (km)
BEAR	DOUBLE	Bearing (away from the instrument) of the measurement (degrees)
DEPH	DOUBLE	Depth of the observation (m)
ESPC	DOUBLE	Radial Standard Deviation of Current Velocity over the Scatter Patch (m/s)
ETMP	DOUBLE	Radial Standard Deviation of Current Velocity over the Coverage Period (m/s)
MAXV	DOUBLE	Maximum velocity
MINV	DOUBLE	Minimum velocity
ERSC	DOUBLE	Radial surface current error
ERTC	DOUBLE	Total radial current error
XDST	DOUBLE	Distance in X-direction from radar site
YDST	DOUBLE	Distance in Y-direction from radar site
SPRC	DOUBLE	Spectral peakiness
OWTR_QC	INT	Quality control flag for OWTR. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
CSPD_QC	INT	Quality control flag for CSPD. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
VART_QC	INT	Quality control flag for VART. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
MDFL_QC	INT	Quality control flag for MDFL. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
AVRB_QC	INT	Quality control flag for AVRB. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
RDCT_QC	INT	Quality control flag for RDCT. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
QCflag	INT	Overall quality flag Note: a value of 1 here indicates that all data in that row's source file was good, but because each row has QC bits for individual fields, a value other than 1 here does not necessarily mean that a row cannot or should not be used.
DRVA	DOUBLE	Direction of Radial Sea Water Velocity away From Instrument (degrees)
RDVA	DOUBLE	Radial Sea Water Velocity Away From Instrument (m/s)
EWCT	DOUBLE	Surface Eastward Sea Water Velocity (m/s)
NSCT	DOUBLE	Surface Northward Sea Water Velocity (m/s)
POSITION_QC	INT	Quality control flag for POSITION. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
SDN_STATION	STRING	Station identifier
TIME_QC	INT	Quality control flag for TIME. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
DEPH_QC	INT	Quality control flag for DEPH. 0: No QC was performed 1: good 2: probably good 3: Bad data that are potentially correctable 4: Bad data 5: value changed 6: Not used 7: nominal 8: interpolated 9: Missing value Note that a valid value for the corresponding variable has a QC bit equal to 1, 2, 5, 7, or 8.
geometry	GEOMETRY	Geographic location of the observation

Terms of Use

Terms of Use

The data is provided free of charge by the Copernicus Marine Service. Users must acknowledge the Copernicus Marine Service as the data source when using the data. More details on the terms of use can be found on the Copernicus Marine Service website.

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Code Editor (JavaScript)

// This script loads a large BigQuery table and performs per-feature operations,
// which can make it take longer to load than typical Earth Engine scripts.
var dataset = ee.FeatureCollection.loadBigQueryTable("earth-engine-public-data.insitu_nrt_currents.radar_radial_latest")
                  .filter(ee.Filter.date('2025-04-01', '2025-04-02'));

dataset = dataset.map(function(f) {
  var val = ee.Number(f.get('RDVA')).float();
  return f.buffer(3000) // 3km radius circles
          .set('RDVA', val);
});


var image = dataset.reduceToImage({
  properties: ['RDVA'],
  reducer: ee.Reducer.first()
});

var visParams = {
  min: -0.5,
  max: 0.5,
  palette: ['a50026', 'd73027', '333333', '4575b4', '313695'],
};

Map.setCenter(-9.46, 42.76, 7);
Map.addLayer(image, visParams, 'Global INSITU Radar Radial RDVA');

Open in Code Editor

Copernicus Global In-situ Observations of Ocean Currents - Radar Radial

The In Situ TAC is a distributed centre organized around 7 oceanographic regions: the global ocean and the 6 EUROGOOS regional alliances. It involves 14 partners from 11 countries in Europe. It doesn't deploy any observing system and relies on data, exclusively funded by other sources than Copernicus Marine Service. …

COPERNICUS/MARINE/INSITU_MULTI_4KM/RADAR_RADIAL, copernicus,currents,insitu,marine,ocean,oceans,radar

2025-03-28T00:00:00Z

-90 -180 90 180

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