Description
The RSS SMAP level 2C sea surface salinity V5.3 dataset produced by the Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and sponsored by the NASA Ocean Salinity Science Team, is a validated product that provides orbital/swath data on sea surface salinity (SSS) derived from the NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission. The SMAP satellite was launched on 31 January 2015
with a near-polar orbit at an inclination of 98 degrees and an altitude of 685 km. It has an ascending node time of 6 pm and is sun-synchronous. With its 1000km swath, SMAP achieves global coverage in approximately 3 days, but has an exact orbit repeat cycle of 8 days. Malfunction of the SMAP scatterometer on 7 July, 2015, has necessitated the use of collocated wind speed, primarily from WindSat, for the surface roughness correction required for the surface salinity retrieval.
The evaluation Version 5.3 is identical to the Version 6.0 validated release with the exception that Version 5.3 uses the Version 5 L1B TA as input. The V6 L1B TA uses a lower TA threshold for RFI exclusion. Until the full back-processing of V6.0 is complete, the evaluation Version 5.3 can and should be used instead. Version 5.3 has been processed from the beginning of the SMAP mission to the end of 2023, and each data file covers one 98-minute orbit (15 files per day) and is available in netCDF-4 file format.
The SMAP-SSS L2C product includes data for a range of parameters: derived sea surface salinity (SSS) with SSS-uncertainty, brightness temperatures for each radiometer polarization, antenna temperatures, collocated wind speed, data and ancillary reference surface salinity data from HYCOM, rain rate, quality flags, and navigation data.
Observations are global in extent with an approximate spatial resolution of 40KM. Note that while a SSS 40KM variable is also included in the product for most open ocean applications, The standard product of the SMAP Version 6.0 release is the smoothed salinity product with a spatial resolution of approximately 70 km.
Resources
| Name | Format | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| View this dataset's documented anomalies | HTML | Dynamically updated RSS webpage listing L2 files with missing ancillary inputs | Open resource |
| View this dataset's documented anomalies | HTML | Dynamically updated RSS webpage listing L2 files with Bad Orbits | Open resource |
| View documentation related to this dataset | HTML | SMAP-SSS Project and Instrument Overview | Open resource |
| View this dataset's documented anomalies | HTML | Information on Data Outages & Known Issues | Open resource |
| View this dataset's algorithm theoretical basis document | ATBD, Validation Analysis, Product Specifications, etc | Open resource | |
| View this dataset's user's guide | SMAP-SSS V6.0 Technical Guide (ATBD, Validation Analysis, Product Format Specification) | Open resource | |
| View this dataset's documented anomalies | HTML | Known issues README | Open resource |
| Download this dataset through a directory map | HTML | HTTPS endpoint for data browse and download | Open resource |
| View this dataset's data recipes | HTML | Generic data readers | Open resource |
| Web Page | HTML | Data Subscriber | Open resource |
| View this dataset's science data product software documentation | HTML | Remote Sensing Systems Science Grade SMAP V5 L2C Processing Algorithm | Open resource |
| View this dataset's data citation policy | HTML | Data Use and Citation Policy | Open resource |
| Get a related visualization | JPG | Thumbnail | Open resource |
| Google Scholar search results | HTML | Search results for publications that cite this dataset by its DOI. | Open resource |
| Download this dataset through Earthdata Search | HTML | Browse granule search results in Earthdata Search | Open resource |
| View documentation related to this dataset | HTML | NASA SMAP Mission Website | Open resource |
| View documentation related to this dataset | HTML | Remote Sensing Systems SMAP Sea Surface Salinity Website | Open resource |