Global Stacked Sea Surface Height Profiles from Sentinel-3A Satellite

770 Sentinel-3A Synthetic Aperture Radar Mode satellite altimeter passes provide stacked sea surface height profiles. The data contains 20,239 records along synthetic tracks between +/-81.419 degrees latitude, processed by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. The dataset was last updated in April 2020.

Use Cases

• Modeling global sea level anomalies by analyzing the stacked sea surface height records across 770 passes.
• Assessing measurement uncertainty for altimetry data by utilizing the sigma column representing expected one sigma error.
• Temporal analysis of ocean surface dynamics using data aggregated from repeat cycles 1 to 56.
• Geospatial mapping of ocean topography by joining the longitude and latitude coordinates with bathymetric datasets.

Strengths

• Covers 770 distinct satellite altimeter passes for broad spatial sampling.
• Contains 20,239 individual geospatial records for analysis.
• Data is stacked from up to 56 repeat cycles, improving signal-to-noise ratio via median profiles.

Limitations

• Temporal coverage is limited to an unspecified period within the 56 repeat cycles used.
• Spatial coverage excludes polar regions above +/-81.419 degrees latitude.
• Sample size of 20,239 records may be limited for high-resolution global models.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI Accession 0219900).

Collection Method

Processed from Sentinel-3A Synthetic Aperture Radar Mode (SARM) satellite altimeter data, with repeat cycles aligned and stacked.

Time Range

Covers an unspecified period corresponding to repeat cycles 1 to 56.

Freshness

Last updated 2020-04-05; update frequency is null.

Geography

Global coverage between -81.419 and +81.419 degrees latitude.