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    • SWOT Level 2 KaRIn Low Rate Sea Surface Height Data Product - WindWave, Version 2.0

    Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

    The SWOT Level 2 KaRIn Low Rate Sea Surface Height Windwave Data Product from the Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission provides global sea surface height and significant wave height observations derived from low rate (LR) measurements from the Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn). SWOT launched on December 16, 2022 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California into a 1-day repeat orbit for the "calibration" or "fast-sampling" phase of the mission, which completed in early July 2023. After the calibration phase, SWOT entered a 21-day repeat orbit in August 2023 to start the "science" phase of the mission, which is expected to continue through 2025. The L2 sea surface height data product is distributed in one netCDF-4 file per pass (half-orbit) covering the full KaRIn swath width, which spans 10-60km on each side of the nadir track. Sea surface height, sea surface height anomaly, wind speed, significant waveheight, and related parameters are provided on a geographically fixed, swath-aligned 2x2 km2 grid (Basic, Expert, Windwave). The sea surface height data are also provided on a finer 250x250 m2 "native" grid with minimal smoothing applied (Unsmoothed). This collection is a sub-collection of its parent: https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/SWOT_L2_LR_SSH_2.0 It provides the "Windwave" file from each L2 SSH product, which includes significant wave height (SWH), normalized radar cross section (NRCS or backscatter cross section or sigma0), wind speed derived from sigma0 and SWH, model information on wind and waves, and quality flags.

    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 March 28, 2024
    Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from NASA Data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date March 28, 2024
    Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025
    Publisher NASA/JPL/PODAAC
    Maintainer
    Identifier C2799465507-POCLOUD
    Data First Published 2022-07-21
    Language en-US
    Data Last Modified 2025-04-01
    Category SWOT, geospatial
    Public Access Level public
    Bureau Code 026:00
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Harvest Object Id 7c71baaf-afe5-456d-88c7-ea5e7c6f278c
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    Homepage URL https://doi.org/10.5067/SWOT-SSH-2.0
    Metadata Type geospatial
    Old Spatial -180.0 -90.0 180.0 90.0
    Program Code 026:001
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash b9857b5bd0ac811ba745c480b8ab8b891e3b4387ec654c9de60710bbb61eb41c
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 2022-12-16T00:00:00Z/2024-03-27T00:00:00Z

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