JPL SMAP Level 2B CAP: Sea Surface Salinity and Wind Data

NASA JPL's validated sea surface salinity and extreme wind orbital/swath product from the Soil Moisture Active Passive satellite. Data includes derived salinity, uncertainty, wind speed/direction, brightness temperatures, and ancillary data like ice concentration. Observations are global, provided at a 25km swath grid with a 60km resolution, beginning April 1, 2015 and ongoing.

Use Cases

• Modeling global ocean salinity patterns based on derived sea surface salinity data.
• Analyzing extreme wind events based on included wind speed and direction data.
• Calibrating other remote sensing instruments using the brightness temperature data.
• Studying polar ice influence on ocean conditions using ancillary ice concentration data.

Strengths

• Data is validated and produced by NASA JPL, indicating a high level of processing rigor.
• Global coverage with observations provided at a 25km swath grid.
• Continuous temporal coverage starting April 1, 2015 with ongoing updates.
• Enhanced calibration methodology applied to brightness temperatures reduces biases between ascending and descending passes.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The scatterometer malfunction in July 2015 necessitated the use of collocated wind data, which may affect retrieval consistency.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing from the SMAP observatory using the Combined Active-Passive retrieval algorithm.

Time Range

April 1, 2015 to ongoing

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 01:22:14.493916; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global