Aquarius Level 3: Sea Surface Salinity 28-Day Running Mean Gridded Data

Aquarius Level 3 data provides global sea surface salinity measurements at a 1-degree spatial resolution, averaged over daily to seasonal timescales. This version 5.0 dataset is the official 28-day running mean product from the NASA AQUARIUS/SAC-D mission, which ended in 2015. The mission used a combination of three radiometers and a scatterometer operating at L-band frequencies to measure brightness temperature and ocean backscatter for salinity estimation.

Use Cases

• Modeling global ocean circulation patterns based on gridded salinity data.
• Studying the freshwater cycle and its interaction with climate using long-term salinity averages.
• Validating other satellite or in-situ salinity measurements against this standard mapped product.
• Analyzing seasonal and interannual variability in sea surface salinity from the 28-day running mean.

Strengths

• Represents the official end-of-mission public data release (Version 5.0) from NASA.
• Provides data at multiple temporal scales: daily, 7-day, monthly, seasonal, and the specific 28-day running mean.
• Derived from a dedicated instrument suite combining three radiometers and a scatterometer for 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 for large-scale ML tasks.
• As an end-of-mission product, the data has a fixed time range and is not being updated with new measurements.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

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

Time Range

Covers the operational period of the AQUARIUS/SAC-D mission (launched 2011, ended 2015).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 14:53:49.232818; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global ocean coverage.