Transportation and Safety | NOAA CoastWatch & OceanWatch

CoastWatch/OceanWatch satellite data that are utilized for marine transportation and safety include sea surface winds, sea surface roughness and sea surface height.

Sea surface winds provide information about transportation and safety hazards such as gales and other storm-related winds. Sea surface winds are also used to improve coastal surf and swell forecasts and for tsunami modeling and prediction.

Sea surface roughness is used by the marine transportation sector to monitor ocean currents, map sea floor topography and detect ships. Sea surface roughness is also used to identify ice type and thickness for ice breaking operations and shipping.

Sea surface height is used to improve tide forecasting and quantify wave height to support transportation efficiency and safety. Sea surface height is also used for global seafloor topography mapping.

Ice Breaking Operations and Shipping in the Great Lakes

Updated: March 20, 2019

In order to understand ice formation and the types of ice in the Great Lakes, the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) and the U.S. Coast Guard use Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from the NOAA CoastWatch Great Lakes Node to monitor six different types of ice, ice thickness, and ice cover.