Aquarius Ancillary Sea Surface Temperature Monthly Descending Data

Global ocean data provides monthly, descending-orbit ancillary sea surface temperature (SST) maps at a 1-degree spatial resolution. This dataset is derived from Reynolds NCDC daily SSTs, processed to match the Aquarius salinity product's grid and is the official end-of-mission release (Version 5.0). It supports the calibration of satellite-derived sea surface salinity measurements.

Use Cases

• Calibrating satellite salinity retrieval algorithms based on co-located SST data.
• Analyzing long-term SST trends in conjunction with Aquarius salinity data for climate studies.
• Validating ocean circulation and climate models using gridded, monthly SST fields.
• Studying the spatial correlation between sea surface temperature and salinity at a global scale.

Strengths

• Represents the official end-of-mission public data release (Version 5.0) from the AQUARIUS/SAC-D mission.
• Provides data at multiple temporal resolutions (daily, 7-day, monthly, seasonal, annual) according to descriptions.
• Sourced from the established Reynolds National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) 0.25-degree dataset.

Limitations

• Critical metadata such as specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are unavailable across all platforms.
• Conflicting 'last updated' timestamps (2015 vs. 2026) between sources create uncertainty about data freshness.
• License is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without details on usage restrictions.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Aquarius/SAC-D mission.

Collection Method

Satellite-derived data from the Aquarius instrument, with SST ancillary data sourced and regridded from the Reynolds NCDC dataset.

Freshness

2026-03-13 15:02:36.071025 (datagov), conflicting with 2015-06-07 (nasa_earthdata).

Geography

Global ocean coverage.