Aquarius: 28-Day Sea Surface Spiciness from Satellite Radiometry

NASA's Aquarius satellite, a joint mission with Argentina's CONAE, produced this Level 3 dataset by measuring ocean brightness temperature at 1.413 GHz. It provides a 28-day running mean of sea surface 'spiciness', a water mass property, at a 1-degree spatial resolution using only ascending pass data. The dataset is derived from three push-broom radiometers with a combined 370 km swath, corrected for surface roughness by a co-located 1.26 GHz scatterometer.

Use Cases

• Tracking water mass formation and movement based on gridded spiciness anomalies.
• Validating ocean circulation models using spatially mapped salinity-derived properties.
• Studying ocean-atmosphere freshwater exchange using a long-running temporal mean.
• Correcting sea surface salinity retrievals using the integrated scatterometer backscatter data.

Strengths

• Data originates from a dedicated NASA-CONAE satellite mission with a described instrument specification (three radiometers at 29°, 38°, 46° incidence).
• Provides a spatially consistent global product at a defined 1-degree gridded resolution.
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA EarthData signals its importance as an official release.

Limitations

• Critical metadata conflicts: 'last updated' dates are 2015-06-07 on NASA EarthData versus 2026 03-13 on Data.gov, suggesting possible archival duplication.
• Column names and exact data structure (e.g., BIN, JPEG file contents) are unspecified, complicating direct use.
• The dataset is limited to Ascending pass retrievals, omitting a full diurnal cycle.

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 satellite's radiometers and scatterometer.

Time Range

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Freshness

2026-03-13 17:15:19.901575 (Data.gov), though this conflicts with the NASA EarthData date.

Geography

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