SMOS Mission: Monthly and 3-Day Sea Surface Salinity Grids

NOAA NCEI's satellite oceanography team generated Level-3 gridded experimental products for near-real-time data-quality monitoring of satellite sea surface salinity (SSS). The data comprises monthly and 3-day mean values interpolated from ESA SMOS mission Level-2 swath data onto a 1.0-degree global grid using equal-weighted bin averaging. It supports monitoring from June 2010 to May 2017.

Use Cases

• Monitoring near-real-time data quality of SMOS Level-2 sea surface salinity products.
• Analyzing global sea surface salinity patterns and variability using 1.0-degree gridded data.
• Validating ocean models and assimilation systems with satellite-derived salinity time series.
• Studying oceanographic processes influenced by salinity, such as freshwater fluxes or ocean circulation.

Strengths

• Derived directly from the European Space Agency's SMOS V6.22 mission data, a primary source for satellite salinity.
• Provides both monthly and higher-frequency 3-day temporal resolutions for analysis.
• Covers a multi-year time range from 2010-06-01 to 2017-05-09.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low: column names, row counts, file sizes, and license information are unknown across all sources.
• The dataset is described as an 'experimental product', indicating it may be for research and development purposes.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (2017 and 2026) suggest potential metadata inconsistency across platforms.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), using data from the European Space Agency (ESA) Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission.

Collection Method

Level-2 swath data interpolated onto a 1.0-degree grid using equal-weighted box (bin) averaging.

Time Range

2010-06-01 to 2017-05-09

Freshness

Last updated metadata dates range from 2017-05-09 to 2026-03-05 across sources.

Geography

Global ocean coverage, gridded at 1.0-degree resolution.