Aquarius Seasonal Ancillary Sea Surface Temperature Data

Aquarius satellite data provides ancillary sea surface temperature (SST) maps at a 1-degree spatial resolution, derived from the Reynolds NCDC dataset for calibrating ocean salinity measurements. These seasonal, ascending-pass products represent the official end-of-mission public release, version 5.0, from the AQUARIUS/SAC-D mission. The dataset supports the validation and interpretation of concurrent salinity and wind speed observations.

Use Cases

• Calibrating satellite salinity retrieval algorithms based on ancillary SST data.
• Analyzing seasonal sea surface temperature patterns from gridded, ascending-pass satellite data.
• Validating ocean models using spatially averaged SST data at a 1-degree resolution.
• Studying the relationship between sea surface temperature and salinity for climate research.

Strengths

• Represents the official end-of-mission public data release (version 5.0) from the AQUARIUS/SAC-D mission.
• Provides data at multiple temporal scales (daily to annual) and a consistent 1-degree spatial resolution.
• Sourced from the established Reynolds National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) 0.25-degree SST dataset.

Limitations

• Column names and specific data structure are not provided in the available metadata.
• Conflicting license information exists between platforms ('other-license-specified' vs. 'None').
• The last updated date shows a significant discrepancy (2015 vs. 2026), suggesting potential metadata issues.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Daily SSTs from the Reynolds NCDC dataset, gridded and averaged using the Aquarius L2-L3 processing scheme.

Freshness

Last updated dates conflict: 2026-03-13 (datagov) and 2015-06-07 (nasa_earthdata).

Geography

Global ocean coverage at 1-degree spatial resolution.