EO·Atlas
Ocean currents
Ocean currents covers surface and upper-ocean circulation: the direction and speed of water movement that affects routing, search and rescue, pollutant drift, ecosystem transport, and climate variability. In satellite workflows the current is usually not observed as a visible object. It is estimated from sea-surface height gradients, wind forcing, sea-surface temperature structure, and model or in-situ constraints.[1][2]
For basin-scale circulation, radar altimetry is the primary EO route because sea-surface-height gradients constrain geostrophic flow. Operational products then fuse altimetry with SST, winds, in-situ observations, and model physics to produce gridded surface or 3D velocity fields.[1][3]
SAR products can add local ocean context through wind, swell, and radial-velocity variables.[4]
What's available today
4 data products and 39 sensors. Start with the most-used; switch to Filter for the full catalogue.
- [1]OSCAR L4 ocean surface currents near-real-time dataset, PO.DAACagency doc2026-06-08
- [2]Copernicus Marine ARMOR3D global 3D temperature, salinity, height, geostrophic current and MLD productagency doc2026-06-08
- [3]Copernicus Marine OMEGA3D global observed ocean physics 3D currents productagency doc2026-06-08
- [4]Sentinel-1 data collections documentation, Copernicus Data Space Ecosystemagency doc2026-06-08
How to cite this page
Plain text
Ocean currents. EO-Atlas, SpectraWorks B.V. https://eo-atlas.org/topics/ocean-currents (CC BY 4.0)
BibTeX
@misc{eoatlas:topics:ocean-currents,
title = {Ocean currents},
author = {{EO-Atlas}},
publisher = {SpectraWorks B.V.},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
url = {https://eo-atlas.org/topics/ocean-currents}
}