Aquarius Satellite Sea Surface Density 28-Day Running Mean Data

28-day running mean sea surface density data from the Aquarius/SAC-D satellite mission, providing global ocean coverage at a 1-degree spatial resolution. The dataset is derived from satellite-retrieved salinity and collated sea surface temperature using the TEOS-10 standard. This Version 5.0 release represents the official end-of-mission public data from the NASA and CONAE collaboration.

Use Cases

• Analyzing large-scale ocean density patterns and their seasonal variability using the gridded 1-degree data.
• Validating ocean circulation and climate models against satellite-derived sea surface density estimates.
• Studying the relationship between sea surface salinity, temperature, and density in the global ocean.
• Investigating long-term trends in ocean surface properties using the 28-day running mean time series.

Strengths

• Provides data from the official Version 5.0 end-of-mission release of the Aquarius instrument, representing the final processed dataset.
• Offers global coverage with a consistent 1-degree gridded format and multiple temporal averages, including the 28-day running mean.

Limitations

• Specific temporal coverage (start/end dates), total row count, and exact column names are not provided in the source metadata.
• Conflicting license information exists between platforms ('other-license-specified' on datagov vs. null/unknown on nasa_earthdata).

Provenance

Source

NASA and the Argentinian Space Agency Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE) via the AQUARIUS/SAC-D mission.

Collection Method

Derived from brightness temperature measurements by three satellite radiometers and ocean backscatter from a scatterometer, processed to retrieve salinity and combined with ancillary sea surface temperature data.

Freshness

2026-03-13 17:22:50.948644

Geography

Global ocean coverage with a total cross-track swath of 370 km from the satellite instrument.