Global Sea Surface Height Anomaly Grids from Reference Satellite Missions

NASA-SSH Simple Gridded Sea Surface Height Version 1 provides 2-D maps of sea level anomaly on a 0.5-degree latitude/longitude grid. The dataset is produced by NASA from radar altimeter satellites including TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason series, and Sentinel-6. Data coverage begins in October 1992 and continues to the present, with new grids released approximately weekly.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal trends in sea surface height anomaly across global 0.5-degree grids to study sea level rise.
• Model ocean basin connectivity by applying the provided basin connection table to avoid mixing data across distinct basins like the Caribbean and Pacific.
• Interpolate sea level data in time using the 7-day production cycle, which is designed for this purpose despite using overlapping 10-day observation windows.
• Study regional ocean dynamics by examining the gaussian weighted spatial averages with a 100 km width applied to the raw along-track observations.

Strengths

• 30+ years of continuous temporal coverage from October 1992 to present.
• Spatial data is provided on a consistent global 0.5-degree latitude/longitude grid.
• Derived from standardized reference mission orbits (TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason, Sentinel-6) ensuring consistency.
• Weekly update frequency with a latency of a few weeks provides near-current data.

Limitations

• Grids are produced using a 10-day observation window but released every 7 days, causing overlap and potential redundancy between adjacent time steps.
• The simple gaussian weighted average with a 100 km width may smooth out finer-scale oceanic features.
• Specific row counts, file sizes, and complete column schema are not provided in the description.

Provenance

Source

NASA, produced from the NASA-SSH Along-Track Sea Surface Height from Standardized Reference Missions Version 1 dataset.

Collection Method

Grids created by applying a simple gaussian weighted spatial average (100 km width) to along-track satellite altimeter observations.

Time Range

October 1992 to present

Freshness

Updated approximately once per week.

Geography

Global ocean coverage, with data segregated by ocean basins using defined basin flags.