Aquarius Seasonal Sea Surface Spiciness Climatology

Seasonal climatology data provides gridded sea surface spiciness at 1-degree spatial resolution, derived from the Aquarius/SAC-D satellite mission. The dataset is a product of collaboration between NASA and Argentina's CONAE, processed into standard mapped images. It was last updated in June 2015.

Use Cases

• Analyzing seasonal patterns in sea surface spiciness, a combined salinity and temperature metric, across global 1-degree grids.
• Validating ocean circulation and climate models using satellite-derived seasonal salinity climatology maps.
• Studying the relationship between sea surface spiciness and other oceanographic variables using gridded data from three radiometer beams at 29, 38, and 46-degree incidence angles.
• Investigating surface roughness corrections for salinity estimation using co-located scatterometer backscatter data at 1.26 GHz.

Strengths

• Data is gridded at a consistent 1-degree spatial resolution for global analysis.
• Incorporates measurements from three separate radiometers and a scatterometer for robust retrieval.

Limitations

• Data freshness is limited, with the last update recorded in 2015.
• Specific temporal coverage (start/end dates) for the climatology period is not provided.
• The dataset uses only descending pass retrievals, which may introduce sampling bias.

Provenance

Source

Aquarius/SAC-D satellite mission, a collaboration between NASA and CONAE.

Collection Method

Remote sensing via three push-broom radiometers at 1.413 GHz and a 1.26 GHz scatterometer, processed into standard mapped images.

Time Range

Seasonal climatology period is unspecified.

Freshness

Last updated in 2015; temporal coverage for climatology period is null.

Geography

Global ocean coverage with a total cross-track swath of 370 km from the radiometers.