Aquarius

NASA's Aquarius Sees Salty Shifts
February 27, 2013

This video provides a global tour of sea surface salinity using measurements taken by NASA's Aquarius instrument aboard the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft, from December 2011 through December 2012. Red represents areas of high salinity, while blue represents areas of low salinity. Aquarius is a focused effort to measure sea surface salinity and will provide the global view of salinity variability needed for climate studies. The mission is a collaboration between NASA and the Space Agency of Argentina (Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales).

 

VALIDATED AQUARIUS/SAC-D DATA SET RELEASED

February 25, 2013
 
The PO.DAAC is pleased to announce the availability of the validated* (version 2.0) Aquarius/SAC-D data.  Data sets comprising this release include the Level 2 orbital data and Level 3 mapped salinity and wind speed products (1 degree spatial resolution for daily, 7 day, monthly, seasonal, and annual time intervals).  Please note that validated* here means that data accuracy and errors are well documented; users are urged to review the available technical documentation for full details. Data are processed through the end of January and will be augmented on monthly intervals for the next few months.  The lag is due to the delays required to have the new data necessary to recalculate the sensor calibrations.  All users are strongly encouraged to work with V2.0 over any previous evaluation versions.
 
The Aquarius v2.0 data sets are described and discoverable via the PO.DAAC data portal.   Access to these data is via PO.DAAC’s public FTP site. The data are also accessible via a range of PO.DAAC tools and services: OPeNDAP, THREDDS, Aquarius Level 3 Browser, SOTO Visualization.
 
The Aquarius Data Users Guide, Aquarius Data Validation Document, and other primary technical documentation , are available from the FTP site together with reader software.   General information regarding Aquarius/SAC-D mission is available from the mission website and also via PO.DAAC’s Aquarius  and salinity webpages.
Should you have any questions, please contact us at: podaac@podaac.jpl.nasa.gov

Any detailed questions should be directed to: salinity@podaac.jpl.nasa.gov.

---

Aquarius V2.0 Data
_{December 11, 2012}

---

Aquarius Spacecraft Safe-hold Events
_{August 31, 2012}

---

 

See all "Official Aquarius/SAC-D" Announcements
See all PO.DAAC Announcements

The Aquarius/SAC-D mission, launched on June 10, 2011,  is a joint venture between NASA and the Argentinean Space Agency (CONAE). The mission features the sea surface salinity sensor Aquarius and is the first mission with the primary goal of measuring sea surface salinity (SSS) from space. Data from Aquarius will play a large role in understanding both climate change and the global water cycle.

This instrument carries 3 radiometers, and 1 scatterometer.  They are operating at 1.4 GHz & 1.2 GHz respectively.  The data collected by the radiometer are being used together with sea surface temperature collected from another platform(s), to derive salinity data.  This is corrected for surface roughness using data from the Aquarius scatterometer.

The satellite will cross the equator at 6am and pm.  The Aquarius instrument will continuously point away from the sun to avoid glint.
 
PO.DAAC will be providing Level 2 SSS data as well as gridded level 3 degree SSS products generated by the Aquarius Ground Segment at Goddard.  Level 3 products will be produced with temporal resolutions of daily, 8 day, monthly, 3 months, and annual. The Aquarius instrument will provide global coverage every 7 days. The spatial resolution will be approximately 100km.