Near Real-Time Global Ocean Swath Data from AMSR2

2012 to present global swath measurements from the AMSR2 instrument on the GCOM-W1 satellite, processed for near real-time availability. The dataset contains key ocean and atmospheric parameters including sea surface temperature, wind speed, water vapor, and cloud liquid water. It is produced by NASA's LANCE system at the AMSR SIPS, using Level-1R data provided by JAXA.

Use Cases

• Monitoring sea surface temperature anomalies for ocean heat content studies.
• Assessing wind speed over oceans for marine weather forecasting and safety.
• Estimating atmospheric water vapor content for humidity and precipitation analysis.
• Quantifying cloud liquid water for cloud microphysics and radiative transfer studies.
• Validating and calibrating numerical weather prediction models over ocean regions.

Strengths

• Data is processed and available within 3 hours of the last observation in the file, enabling near real-time analysis.
• Uses the same algorithm as the standard science products, ensuring methodological consistency.
• Provides global spatial coverage for all ocean regions.

Limitations

• Near real-time products may have lower quality due to the use of preliminary ancillary, calibration, and ephemeris information compared to final science products.
• Specific row counts, file sizes, and precise temporal start dates are not provided across sources.
• License information is inconsistently reported as 'other-license-specified' or null.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) / Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

Collection Method

Passive microwave measurements from the AMSR2 instrument on the GCOM-W1 satellite, processed by the Land Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE).

Time Range

2012 to present (implied by mission operation, no explicit start date given).

Freshness

2026-03-12 23:02:29.154339

Geography

Global swath coverage over all ocean regions.