SMAP Satellite Near Real-Time Sea Surface Salinity and Wind Data

April 2015 to present data provides near real-time orbital swath measurements of sea surface salinity, wind speed, and brightness temperatures from NASA's SMAP mission. Observations are global on a 25km swath grid with a spatial resolution of approximately 60 km, produced by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Combined Active-Passive project. Data is available with a latency of about 6 hours.

Use Cases

• Analyzing sea surface salinity (SSS) patterns and uncertainty to study freshwater input and ocean mixing.
• Monitoring extreme wind speed and direction data for storm tracking and marine safety assessments.
• Using brightness temperatures for each radiometer polarization to calibrate satellite retrieval algorithms.
• Incorporating ancillary ice concentration and wave height data for polar oceanography and sea state studies.
• Applying quality flags and navigation data to filter and geolocate valid salinity measurements for trend analysis.

Strengths

• Global coverage achieved approximately every three days due to the satellite's near-polar orbit.
• Data available with a latency of about 6 hours for near real-time monitoring.
• Enhanced calibration methodology improves absolute radiometric calibration and minimizes biases.
• Approximately 15 files generated per day, each covering one 98-minute orbit.

Limitations

• Spatial resolution is approximately 60 km, limiting fine-scale analysis.
• Wind speed data for surface roughness correction relies on collocated sources due to a scatterometer malfunction in July 2015.
• Specific row counts and total dataset size are not provided.

Provenance

Source

Jet Propulsion Laboratory Combined Active-Passive (CAP) project, NASA SMAP mission.

Collection Method

Derived from SMAP satellite's passive microwave instrument using the V5.0 CAP retrieval algorithm.

Time Range

April 1, 2015 to present.

Freshness

Near real-time with 6-hour latency.

Geography

Global.