RSS SSMIS Ocean Grids Monthly Averages from DMSP F17 Satellite

NASA's RSS SSMIS Ocean Product Grids Monthly Average dataset contains satellite-derived geophysical measurements over the ocean. Remote Sensing Systems produces this data using a unified algorithm refined over 20 years to retrieve ocean wind speed, water vapor, cloud water, and rain rate from the DMSP F17 satellite's SSMIS sensor. The Global Hydrology Resource Center reformats the data into netCDF files, providing monthly averaged values.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term trends in ocean surface wind speed for climate modeling.
• Studying global atmospheric water vapor distribution and its variability.
• Investigating relationships between cloud liquid water content and precipitation rates over oceans.
• Validating and calibrating other satellite or model-based environmental datasets.

Strengths

• Data is intercalibrated to the brightness temperature level of previous SSM/I sensors, ensuring continuity for a multi-decade time series.
• The retrieval algorithm is the product of 20 years of refinements, improvements, and verifications.
• Dataset is part of NASA's MEaSUREs Program, indicating a high standard of production and curation.

Limitations

• Specific row counts, file sizes, and detailed column names are unavailable across all sources.
• Sources disagree on license information, with one specifying 'other-license-specified' and another listing no license.
• The temporal coverage and exact date of last update are unclear from the provided metadata.

Provenance

Source

Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), produced for NASA's MEaSUREs Program.

Collection Method

Generated from DMSP F17 satellite SSMIS sensor data using a unified, physically-based retrieval algorithm, reformatted into netCDF by the Global Hydrology Resource Center.

Freshness

2026-03-12 22:20:51.945468

Geography

Global ocean coverage.