Aquarius Official Release Level 2 Sea Surface Salinity & Wind Speed Data V5.0

Aquarius Official Release Level 2 Sea Surface Salinity & Wind Speed Data V5.0
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DOI10.5067/AQR50-2SOCS
Short NameAQUARIUS_L2_SSS_V5
DescriptionThe version 5.0 Aquarius Level 2 product is the official third release of the orbital/swath data from AQUARIUS/SAC-D mission. The Aquarius Level 2 data set contains sea surface salinity (SSS) and wind speed data derived from 3 different radiometers and the onboard scatterometer. Included also in the Level 2 data are the horizontal and vertical brightness temperatures (TH and TV) for each radiometer, ancillary data, flags, converted telemetry and navigation data. Each data file covers one 98 minute orbit. The Aquarius instrument is onboard the AQUARIUS/SAC-D satellite, a collaborative effort between NASA and the Argentinian Space Agency Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE). The instrument consists of three radiometers in push broom alignment at incidence angles of 29, 38, and 46 degrees incidence angles relative to the shadow side of the orbit. Footprints for the beams are: 76 km (along-track) x 94 km (cross-track), 84 km x 120 km and 96km x 156 km, yielding a total cross-track swath of 370 km. The radiometers measure brightness temperature at 1.413 GHz in their respective horizontal and vertical polarizations (TH and TV). A scatterometer operating at 1.26 GHz measures ocean backscatter in each footprint that is used for surface roughness corrections in the estimation of salinity. The scatterometer has an approximate 390km swath. Enhancements to the version 5.0 Level 2 data relative to v4.0 include: improvement of the salinity retrieval geophysical model for SST bias, estimates of SSS uncertainties (systematic and random components), and inclusion of a new spiciness variable.
Version5.0
Dataset TypeOPEN
MeasurementOceans > Salinity/Density > Salinity
Oceans > Ocean Winds > Surface Winds > Surface Wind Speed
Processing Level2
CoverageRegion: Global
Northernmost Latitude: 90 degrees
Southernmost Latitude: -90 degrees
Westernmost Longitude: -180 degrees
Easternmost Longitude: 180 degrees
Time Span: 2011-Aug-25 to 2015-Jun-07
ResolutionSpatial Resolution: 96 km (Along) x 390 km (Across)
ProjectionType: Swath
Detail:
Ellipsoid:
Latency720 hours
Swath Width3 m
Sample Frequency-
Temporal Repeat (Nominal)7 Day
Temporal Repeat (Min)7 Day
Temporal Repeat (Max)7 Day
Platform/Sensor
Aquarius_SAC-D
Platform
Name: Aquarius SAC-D (Aquarius_SAC-D)
Orbit Period: 98 minutes
Inclination Angle: 98 degrees
Ascending Node: 1970-Jan-01 00:00:00
/
AQUARIUS_RADIOMETER
SENSOR
Name: Aquarius Radiometer (AQUARIUS_RADIOMETER)
Swath Width: 390 km
Description: Launched in 2011 the 3 Aquarius radiometers meet very exacting requirements for low noise and calibration stability. This makes them about an order of magnitude more accurate than any radiometer ever used before for remote sensing of the earth. Aquarius measures in the microwave range at 1.413 GHz (+/- 25MHz).

Aquarius_SAC-D
Platform
Name: Aquarius SAC-D (Aquarius_SAC-D)
Orbit Period: 98 minutes
Inclination Angle: 98 degrees
Ascending Node: 1970-Jan-01 00:00:00
/
AQUARIUS_SCATTEROMETER
SENSOR
Name: Aquarius Scatterometer (AQUARIUS_SCATTEROMETER)
Swath Width: 390 km
Description: The Aquarius scatterometer is a total-power L-band (1.26 GHz)radar system for estimating ocean surface roughness. Itsmeasurements will enable the removal of wind effects from theAquarius radiometer ocean-surface brightness temperaturemeasurements being used to retrieve ocean salinity. TheAquarius scatterometer is a relatively simple, low-spatialresolution power-detecting radar, without ranging capability.But to meet its science requirement, it must be very stable, withrepeatability on the order of 0.1 dB over several days, andcalibrated accuracy to this level over several months. Datafrom this instrument over land as well as ocean areas will beavailable for a variety of geophysical applications.

ProjectAQUARIUS SAC-D (AQUARIUS SAC-D)
Data ProviderCreator: NASA Aquarius project
Release Place: Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Rd.; Greeenbelt, MD., 20771, USA
Release Date: 2017-Dec-07
Resource: http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/SeaSurfaceSalinity/Aquarius
Keyword(s)Aquarius, salinity, wind speed, polar, sun-synchronous, sss, psu, CONAE, argentina, project, mission, OBPG
Persistent IDPODAAC-AQR50-2SOCS
Questions related to this dataset? Contact podaac@podaac.jpl.nasa.gov
User's Guide
User's Guidehttps://podaac-tools.jpl.nasa.gov/drive/files/allData/aquarius/docs/v5/AQ-010-UG-0008_AquariusUserGuide_DatasetV5.0.pdf
Aquarius Data User's Guide
Project Materials
Aquarius v5.0 Documentation Packagehttps://podaac-tools.jpl.nasa.gov/drive/files/allData/aquarius/docs/v5/
ATBD, Validation Analysis, Product Specifications, etc
Additional Sites
Aquarius/SAC-D Mission Websitehttps://aquarius.nasa.gov/
NASA Aquarius/SAC-D mission website
PO.DAAC Aquarius/SAC-D Mission pagehttps://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/aquarius
Mission and Instrument Overview
Known Issues
Aquarius/SAC-D Event Loghttps://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/sdpscgi/public/aquarius_report.cgi
Information on observatory maneuvers, anomalies and other events
Citation NASA Aquarius project. 2017. Aquarius Official Release Level 2 Sea Surface Salinity & Wind Speed Data V5.0. Ver. 5.0. PO.DAAC, CA, USA. Dataset accessed [YYYY-MM-DD] at https://doi.org/10.5067/AQR50-2SOCS.

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For more information see Data Citations and Acknowledgments.
Journal Reference Aquarius User's Guide (see http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/SeaSurfaceSalinity/Aquarius)