Aquarius Level 3: 7-Day Ascending Sea Surface Salinity Gridded Data

NASA and CONAE's Aquarius/SAC-D mission provides global sea surface salinity data. This version 5.0 end-of-mission release contains 7-day averaged, ascending-pass salinity values mapped to a 1-degree spatial grid. The data is derived from three radiometers and a scatterometer measuring brightness temperature and ocean backscatter at L-band frequencies.

Use Cases

• Modeling global ocean circulation patterns based on gridded sea surface salinity data.
• Studying the freshwater cycle and its interaction with climate based on 7-day averaged salinity maps.
• Validating and calibrating other salinity measurement systems based on the satellite's three-beam radiometer design.
• Analyzing temporal salinity trends in specific ocean basins based on the ascending-pass data subset.

Strengths

• Official end-of-mission public data release (version 5.0) from the NASA-CONAE Aquarius/SAC-D collaboration.
• Data is gridded at a consistent 1-degree spatial resolution for analysis.
• Salinity retrieval uses a three-radiometer, one-scatterometer system for surface roughness correction.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is limited to ascending satellite passes only, not a complete orbital dataset.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the Aquarius instrument's radiometers and scatterometer onboard the AQUARIUS/SAC-D satellite.

Time Range

Coverage corresponds to the operational lifetime of the Aquarius/SAC-D mission.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 14:50:44.470429; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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