S6A_RO_2__NTC_NC__: Sentinel-6 Atmospheric Profiles via GNSS Radio Occultation

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory generates this Level 2 dataset from the Sentinel-6A Michael Freilich satellite, launched on November 21, 2020. It provides non-time-critical retrievals of vertical profiles for refractivity, temperature, and humidity using the Global Navigation Satellite System Radio-Occultation sounding technique. The data is structured as individual granules, each representing one occultation event with a nominal geodetic reference location.

Use Cases

• Assessing temperature and humidity changes in the troposphere and stratosphere based on the vertical profile retrievals.
• Supporting numerical weather prediction by providing high-resolution atmospheric sounding data.
• Analyzing atmospheric refractivity for climate indicator studies based on the GNSS RO technique.
• Studying satellite sensor characteristics and geolocation based on the phase and amplitude data from occultation events.

Strengths

• Data is produced by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as part of a major international collaboration involving NASA, EUMETSAT, ESA, NOAA, and CNES.
• The dataset provides high-resolution vertical profiles, a key objective of the Sentinel-6 mission for atmospheric science.
• Its presence on multiple authoritative platforms (NASA Earthdata and Data.gov) signals its importance and reliability.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing or conflicting across sources: row count, size, and specific column names are unknown.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without further detail, which may restrict use.
• Documentation appears sparse, with no explicit data dictionary or detailed schema provided.

Provenance

Source

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from the Sentinel-6A Michael Freilich satellite.

Collection Method

Generated using the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Radio-Occultation (RO) sounding technique.

Time Range

Data collection began after the satellite launch on November 21, 2020; specific end date is not provided.

Freshness

2026-04-09 22:22:23.402493

Geography

Global coverage, with each data granule associated with a latitude and longitude reference point from an occultation event.