Aquarius Level 3: Monthly Sea Surface Salinity Smoothed Gridded Data

Aquarius V5.0 provides the official end-of-mission public release of monthly averaged sea surface salinity data. NASA and Argentina's CONAE collaborated on the AQUARIUS/SAC-D satellite, which used three radiometers and a scatterometer to measure brightness temperature and ocean backscatter at 1.413 GHz and 1.26 GHz, respectively. The data is presented as gridded standard mapped images with a 1-degree spatial resolution.

Use Cases

• Modeling global ocean circulation patterns based on monthly sea surface salinity maps.
• Studying the relationship between salinity and density for climate research.
• Validating and calibrating other satellite or in-situ salinity measurements.
• Analyzing long-term trends in ocean salinity for climate change studies.

Strengths

• Official end-of-mission public release (V5.0) from a dedicated satellite mission.
• Data is gridded at a 1-degree spatial resolution for standardized analysis.
• Derived from three radiometers and a scatterometer, providing multiple measurement angles and surface roughness correction.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic or temporal bias inherent to the satellite's coverage and mission lifetime.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE).

Collection Method

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

Time Range

Monthly averages; specific mission timeframe is not provided in the input.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 14:53:12.631306; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global ocean coverage within the instrument's 370 km cross-track swath.