Aquarius Seasonal Climatology of Rain-flagged Sea Surface Salinity

Aquarius Level 3 data provides seasonal climatology maps of sea surface salinity (SSS) at 1-degree spatial resolution. The data is derived from NASA and CONAE's AQUARIUS/SAC-D satellite, which uses three radiometers and a scatterometer operating at 1.413 GHz and 1.26 GHz to measure brightness temperature and ocean backscatter. This version 5.0 product specifically uses ascending pass data and includes rain-flagging to filter retrievals.

Use Cases

• Modeling ocean circulation and freshwater input based on gridded sea surface salinity maps.
• Studying seasonal climate patterns using the rain-flagged, ascending-pass-only salinity product.
• Calibrating other salinity measurement systems using data from the three-beam Aquarius radiometer and scatterometer.

Strengths

• Data is from a dedicated satellite mission (AQUARIUS/SAC-D) operated by NASA and CONAE.
• Includes rain-flagging to filter out retrievals affected by precipitation.
• Uses a three-radiometer push broom alignment with a 370 km cross-track swath for spatial coverage.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and exact data volume are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the Aquarius instrument's radiometers and scatterometer.

Time Range

Seasonal climatology (long-term average).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 14:59:37.758268; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global ocean coverage.