Level 3 sea surface salinity data provides a gridded 1-degree spatial resolution product averaged over daily, 7-day, monthly, and seasonal timescales. This version 5.0 dataset is the official end-of-mission public release from the NASA and CONAE collaborative AQUARIUS/SAC-D mission. The data was last updated in June 2015.
Use Cases
- Analyze temporal trends in sea surface salinity using the 7-day running mean time series.
- Map global or regional salinity distributions from the 1-degree gridded data.
- Validate ocean circulation and climate models against satellite-derived salinity measurements.
- Study the correlation between sea surface salinity and other oceanographic variables using the standard mapped image format.
Strengths
- Data is gridded at a consistent 1-degree spatial resolution for global analysis.
- Represents the official, final version 5.0 release from the Aquarius mission.
Limitations
- Temporal coverage is limited to the mission lifetime, ending in 2015, and may not reflect recent conditions.
- The 1-degree grid resolution is coarse and may not capture fine-scale coastal or mesoscale features.
Provenance
- Source
- NASA and Argentinian Space Agency (CONAE) AQUARIUS/SAC-D satellite mission.
- Collection Method
- Derived from brightness temperature measurements at 1.413 GHz by three radiometers and ocean backscatter from a 1.26 GHz scatterometer.
- Time Range
- Covers the operational period of the Aquarius instrument, concluding with the 2015 data release.
- Freshness
- Data last updated in 2015; mission concluded.
- Geography
- Global ocean coverage within the instrument's 370-390 km cross-track swath.