SAMBA: South American and Antarctic Ground Magnetometer Data, 2002-Present

South America and Antarctica are covered by ground magnetometer data from the 12-station South American Meridional B-field Array (SAMBA). The data, processed and despiked in the HDZ coordinate system, begins in April 2002 and is provided at 1-second resolution for most stations. It is produced by SCIOPS and available in ASCII and CDF formats.

Use Cases

• Analyzing geomagnetic disturbances based on 1-second resolution magnetic field components (H, D, Z).
• Studying latitudinal variations in magnetic activity based on data from 12 stations spanning equatorial to auroral latitudes.
• Investigating data quality and GPS accuracy based on the provided accuracy flag column.
• Researching long-term space climate trends based on continuous data collection from 2002 to the present.

Strengths

• Data from 12 distinct stations provides spatial coverage from equatorial to auroral magnetic latitudes.
• Long-term temporal coverage beginning in April 2002.
• High temporal resolution of 1 second for 11 of the 12 stations.
• Data is processed, despiked, and provided with an accuracy flag for quality assessment.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• One station (WAIS Divide) has a lower 10-second resolution compared to the others.

Provenance

Source

SCIOPS, via NASA Earthdata.

Collection Method

Collected from ground-based magnetometer stations.

Time Range

2002-04 to present.

Freshness

Data coverage is described as '2002 - present', but the last update date is unknown.

Geography

12 stations: 8 along the coast of Chile and 4 in Antarctica.