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
  • Feedback

    • RSS SMAP Level 2C Sea Surface Salinity NRT V5.0 Validated Dataset

    Metadata Updated: December 6, 2023

    The version 5.0 SMAP-SSS, level 2C product contains the fourth release of the validated sea surface salinity orbital/swath data from the NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory, and is produced operationally by Remote Sensing Systems (RSS). The major changes in Version 5.0 from Version 4 are: (1) the addition of formal uncertainty estimates to all salinity retrieval products. (2) Sea-ice flagging and sea-ice side-lobe correction based on direct ingestion of AMSR-2 brightness temperature (TB) measurements. This is in contrast to Version 4 and earlier versions in which the sea-ice correction was based on an external sea-ice concentration product. The use of AMSR-2 TB measurements in the SMAP Version 5 products allows for salinity retrievals closer to the sea-ice edge and aids in the detection of large icebergs near the Antarctic. 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. Each data file covers one 98-minute orbit (15 files per day). Data begins on April 1,2015 and is ongoing. 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 default SSS variable (70KM) is best used as they are significantly less noisy than the 40KM data. The SMAP satellite is in 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. On board Instruments include a highly sensitive L-band radiometer operating at 1.41GHz and an L-band 1.26GHz radar sensor providing complementary active and passive sensing capabilities. 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.

    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 June 27, 2023
    Metadata Updated Date December 6, 2023

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from NASA Data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Graphic Preview

    Thumbnail

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date June 27, 2023
    Metadata Updated Date December 6, 2023
    Publisher NASA/JPL/PODAAC
    Maintainer
    Identifier C2646960543-POCLOUD
    Data First Published 2021-01-13
    Language en-US
    Data Last Modified 2021-01-13
    Category SMAP, 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 Remote Sensing Systems (RSS). 2023-06-09. RSS SMAP Level 2C Sea Surface Validated Dataset. Version 5.0. SMAP Sea Surface Salinity Products. Remote Sensing Systems, 444 Tenth Street, Suite 200, Santa Rosa, CA 95401, USA. Archived by National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Government, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS). https://doi.org/10.5067/SMP50-2SNRT. http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/smap. Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), 2022-02-25, RSS SMAP Level 2C Sea Surface Salinity V5.0 Validated Dataset, http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/smap.
    Creator Remote Sensing Systems (RSS)
    Graphic Preview Description Thumbnail
    Graphic Preview File https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/Podaac/thumbnails/SMAP_RSS_L2_SSS_V5.jpg
    Harvest Object Id 4f21fa86-3c17-44b3-80e5-50fb04ecf60b
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    Homepage URL https://doi.org/10.5067/SMP50-2SNRT
    Metadata Type geospatial
    Old Spatial -180.0 -90.0 180.0 90.0
    Program Code 026:001
    Release Place Remote Sensing Systems, 444 Tenth Street, Suite 200, Santa Rosa, CA 95401, USA
    Series Name RSS SMAP Level 2C Sea Surface Validated Dataset
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash a0671e4cb0b1574f8619bec55509671975cfefa04ddad5fdea16778ed26c4e42
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 2015-04-01T00:43:12Z/2023-06-05T00:00:00Z

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