SARAL NRT SSHA: Near-Real-Time Sea Surface Height Anomaly

SARAL satellite data provides near-real-time sea surface height anomalies (SSHA) within 7-9 hours of measurement. The dataset features an orbit adjusted using crossovers with the OSTM/Jason-2 GPS-OGDR-SSHA product, achieving an altitude accuracy of 1.5 cm (RMS). It also contains reduced OGDR data and improved altimeter wind speeds and sea state bias corrections.

Use Cases

• Ocean current and eddy monitoring based on near-real-time sea surface height anomalies.
• Validating and improving ocean forecasting models using the 1.5 cm RMS accurate orbit.
• Studying wind-wave interactions using the improved altimeter wind speed data.
• Assimilating corrected sea surface topography data into climate models.

Strengths

• Provides data within a 7-9 hour latency, enabling near-real-time analysis.
• Orbit adjustment yields a reported altitude accuracy of 1.5 cm (RMS).
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals established importance and curation.

Limitations

• Critical metadata such as row count, column names, and file size are unavailable across all sources.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.
• The dataset's temporal coverage is not explicitly stated, limiting understanding of its historical span.

Provenance

Source

Satellite with ARgos and ALtiKa (SARAL), a French (CNES)/Indian (ISRO) collaborative mission.

Collection Method

Measurements from the Ka-band AltiKa altimeter onboard the SARAL satellite, launched February 25, 2013.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-04-09 22:17:06.980155

Geography

Global ocean coverage from satellite altimetry.