Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Aquarius CAP Level 2 Sea Surface Salinity, Wind Speed & Direction Data V5.0

Metadata Updated: December 6, 2023

The version 5.0 Aquarius CAP Level 2 product contains the fourth release of the AQUARIUS/SAC-D orbital/swath data based on the Combined Active Passive (CAP) algorithm. CAP is a P.I. produced dataset developed and provided by JPL. This Level 2 dataset contains sea surface salinity (SSS), wind speed and wind direction data derived from 3 different radiometers and the onboard scatterometer. The CAP algorithm simultaneously retrieves the salinity, wind speed and direction by minimizing the sum of squared differences between model and observations. The main improvements in CAP V5.0 relative to the previous version include: updates to the Geophysical Model Functions to 4th order harmonics with the inclusion of sea surface temperature (SST) and stability at air-sea interface effects; use of the Canadian Meteorological Center (CMC) SST product as the new source ancillary sea surface temperature data in place of NOAA OI SST. Each L2 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.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date May 30, 2023
Metadata Updated Date December 6, 2023

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Graphic Preview

Thumbnail

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date May 30, 2023
Metadata Updated Date December 6, 2023
Publisher NASA/JPL/PODAAC
Maintainer
Identifier C2205121315-POCLOUD
Data First Published 2018-08-22
Language en-US
Data Last Modified 2018-08-22
Category AQUARIUS SAC-D, geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://data.nasa.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Citation Simon Yueh. 2018-10-01. Aquarius CAP Sea Surface Salinity and Wind Products. Version 5.0. Aquarius CAP Sea Surface Salinity and Wind Products. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA91109, USA. Archived by National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Government, JPL - Simon Yueh. https://doi.org/10.5067/AQR50-2TOCS. http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/SeaSurfaceSalinity/Aquarius. Simon Yueh, JPL - Simon Yueh, 2018-10-01, Aquarius CAP Level 2 Sea Surface Salinity, Wind Speed & Direction Data V5.0, http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/SeaSurfaceSalinity/Aquarius.
Creator Simon Yueh
Graphic Preview Description Thumbnail
Graphic Preview File https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/Podaac/thumbnails/AQUARIUS_L2_SSS_CAP_V5.jpg
Harvest Object Id 1e1358bb-36be-434e-8f11-975905a434dd
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://doi.org/10.5067/AQR50-2TOCS
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -180.0 -90.0 180.0 90.0
Program Code 026:001
Release Place Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA91109, USA
Series Name Aquarius CAP Sea Surface Salinity and Wind Products
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 0c2fcab076132829f6cd6d1aa54f1c65f88e332eb63e3533b64cbbb8a9c95762
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 2011-08-26T00:29:00Z/2015-06-05T00:30:01Z

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.