L2C Output Usage

This page illustrates how to use the output L2C products generated by topsocnww3sp.

Loading the Product

Since the product is stored in NetCDF groups, you can load it using xarray:

import xarray as xr

ds = xr.open_dataset("path/to/product_v0.1.nc", group="SAR_intraburst")
# Load the corresponding WW3 data
ds_ww3 = xr.open_dataset("path/to/product_v0.1.nc", group="WW3")

Comparing SAR and Model

The primary use of the L2C product is to compare observed ocean wave characteristics from S1 OSW with model spectra from WW3.

In lasso mode, you can iterate through all extracted spectra for a given subswath and perform spatial analysis or compute statistics within the footprint.

In mapping modes (1to1, unique, many), you can use the indices provided in the MATCH_MAP groups to align each SAR tile with its closest model spectrum accurately.