Aquarius V5.0: Annual Ascending Sea Surface Salinity Grid

Annual sea surface salinity data from the end-of-mission Aquarius/SAC-D satellite release, version 5.0. This Level 3 product provides gridded salinity values at a 1-degree spatial resolution, derived exclusively from ascending satellite passes. The dataset is a result of a NASA-CONAE collaboration, using a three-radiometer instrument with a 370 km swath and a scatterometer for surface roughness correction.

Use Cases

• Monitoring global ocean salinity trends based on annual gridded data.
• Assessing surface roughness corrections for salinity retrieval using scatterometer backscatter data.
• Analyzing sea surface salinity from ascending satellite passes for diurnal cycle studies.
• Validating ocean circulation models with spatially mapped salinity observations.
• Studying the freshwater flux into the ocean using long-term salinity records.

Strengths

• Provides the official end-of-mission public data release (version 5.0) from the Aquarius/SAC-D project.
• Offers data at a standardized 1-degree spatial resolution, facilitating global analysis.
• Derived from a sophisticated instrument suite with three radiometers and a dedicated scatterometer for correction.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low; specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are unknown across all platforms.
• The dataset appears static (end-of-mission), suggesting no future updates, though a last updated date of 2026-03-13 on datagov conflicts with the 2015 date on nasa_earthdata.
• Limited to ascending pass data, excluding descending passes which may provide complementary information.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the Aquarius instrument on the AQUARIUS/SAC-D satellite.

Time Range

Annual coverage for the mission period (specific years not provided).

Freshness

Last updated dates conflict: 2026-03-13 on datagov and 2015-06-07 on nasa_earthdata.

Geography

Global ocean coverage.