Sentinel-6A AMR-C: Short Time Critical Geophysical Parameters for Ocean Altimetry

Sentinel-6A Michael Freilich's Advanced Microwave Radiometer provides geophysical corrections for sea surface height measurements with a 36-hour latency. Its Level 2 Short Time Critical product includes surface type, wind speed, water vapor, brightness temperature, sigma0, and wet troposphere data, interpolated to match the Poseidon-4 SAR altimeter's sampling intervals. This dataset is the direct operational analog to the Jason-3 IGDR product.

Use Cases

• Correcting satellite altimetry measurements for atmospheric water vapor (wet troposphere correction)
• Estimating ocean surface wind speed over global basins
• Classifying surface type (e.g., ocean, land, ice) for data filtering
• Analyzing backscatter (sigma0) for sea state characterization
• Assimilating near-real-time geophysical data into weather and ocean forecast models

Strengths

• Provides low-latency (36-hour) data critical for operational oceanography and forecasting
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA EarthData signals its importance and reliability
• Data is specifically interpolated to correspond with concurrent altimetry measurements, ensuring direct usability

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources
• License is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without clear terms
• The dataset's temporal coverage and spatial resolution are not explicitly stated

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Collected by the Advanced Microwave Radiometer (AMR-C) instrument aboard the Sentinel-6A Michael Freilich spacecraft and processed to Level 2.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-09 on Data.gov

Geography

Global ocean coverage, inferred from the mission's purpose for sea surface topography.