INTERNATIONAL WINDS WORKING GROUP

Welcome to the International Winds Working Group website!

The International Winds Working Group (IWWG) was established and held its first meeting in 1991 and became a formal working group of the Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites (CGMS) in 1994. John Morgan, the first Director of EUMETSAT, was the driving force behind creation of the group which initially focussed on cloud track winds from geostationary satellites. In later years the group widened the area of interest to include winds from tracking water vapour features and winds over polar regions from feature tracking using polar orbiter imagery. The group also addresses winds from other space based observations. Examples include ocean surface winds derived from radar backscatter (e.g. Seawinds, ASCAT) and conical-scanning microwave radiometers (e.g. WindSat), winds derived from research missions (e.g. MISR) and future datasets including wind profile information from space-borne lidar (e.g. ADM-Aeolus) and 3-D wind fields derived from tracking features in clear sky moisture fields produced from future geostationary hyperspectral infrared sounders (e.g. MTG-IRS). IWWG provides a forum to discuss and coordinate research and developments in data production, verification/validation procedures, and assimilation techniques.