Seasonal climatology maps of sea surface salinity at 1-degree spatial resolution derived from Aquarius satellite ascending passes. The data is produced from version 5.0 of the Aquarius dataset, a collaboration between NASA and Argentina's CONAE. The satellite's three radiometers and scatterometer measured brightness temperatures and ocean backscatter across a 370 km swath.
Use Cases
- Analyzing seasonal climatology patterns of sea surface salinity using the 1-degree gridded data.
- Studying the impact of rainfall on ocean salinity using the rain-flagged salinity product.
- Validating ocean circulation and climate models with satellite-derived ascending pass salinity averages.
- Investigating spatial salinity gradients across ocean basins from the mapped image data.
Strengths
- 1-degree spatial resolution for global analysis
- Data incorporates corrections for surface roughness using a dedicated 1.26 GHz scatterometer
Limitations
- Data is limited to Ascending satellite passes only, not a complete daily picture
- Product is a seasonal climatology, not suitable for studying specific daily or interannual events
- Last update was in 2015, making the dataset temporally stale for current climate studies
Provenance
- Source
- Aquarius/SAC-D satellite, a NASA/CONAE collaboration
- Collection Method
- Satellite remote sensing using three L-band radiometers and a scatterometer
- Time Range
- null
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Global ocean coverage