Aquarius Level 3: 7-Day Rain-Flagged Sea Surface Salinity Gridded Data

Aquarius Level 3 sea surface salinity data provides gridded 1-degree spatial resolution salinity measurements averaged over 7-day periods. The dataset is produced by NASA and the Argentinian Space Agency CONAE using a satellite-mounted instrument combining three radiometers and a scatterometer. The data is part of version 5.0 of the Aquarius dataset.

Use Cases

• Modeling global ocean salinity patterns based on gridded 1-degree spatial resolution data.
• Analyzing the impact of rainfall on sea surface salinity using the rain-flagged product.
• Studying ocean density and circulation by integrating salinity data with temperature measurements.
• Validating and calibrating other satellite or in-situ salinity measurements based on the standardized mapped image format.

Strengths

• Data is produced by NASA and CONAE, indicating authoritative scientific provenance.
• Provides a standardized, gridded product at 1-degree spatial resolution.
• Incorporates corrections for surface roughness using a dedicated scatterometer operating at 1.26 GHz.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale ML projects.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the AQUARIUS/SAC-D satellite's radiometers and scatterometer.

Time Range

Temporal coverage is not explicitly stated in the provided input.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 15:01:26.109260; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global ocean coverage, inferred from the satellite's 370 km cross-track swath.