Aquarius Satellite Ancillary Sea Surface Temperature Seasonal Data

NASA's Aquarius Level 3 ancillary sea surface temperature (SST) data are derived from Reynolds NCDC daily SSTs and processed for salinity calibration. The dataset provides SST values gridded to a 1-degree spatial resolution across daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal, and annual time intervals. This specific product contains seasonal, descending-pass ancillary SST data from the official Version 5.0 end-of-mission public release.

Use Cases

• Calibrating satellite-derived ocean salinity retrievals based on ancillary SST data.
• Analyzing seasonal sea surface temperature patterns at a 1-degree resolution.
• Validating climate and ocean circulation models using gridded, time-averaged SST observations.
• Studying long-term SST trends by combining daily, weekly, monthly, and annual data products.

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 to annual) from a consistent processing scheme.
• Sourced from the authoritative Reynolds National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) 0.25-degree dataset.

Limitations

• Column names and precise data structure are not provided in the available metadata.
• Update timestamps conflict between sources, with one showing 2026 (likely an error) and another 2015.
• Specific file sizes and row counts are unavailable, limiting assessment of data volume.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data from the Aquarius instrument, processed from Reynolds NCDC daily SSTs using Aquarius L2-L3 gridding and averaging schemes.

Freshness

2015-06-07 12:45:21

Geography

Global ocean coverage at 1-degree spatial resolution.