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Aquarius Official Release Level 3 Sea Surface Spiciness Standard Mapped Image Descending Mission Cumulative Data V5.0

Published by Aquarius Project NASA/CONAE;NASA/JPL/PODAAC | National Aeronautics and Space Administration | Metadata Last Checked: April 04, 2026 | Last Modified: 2026-03-30
Aquarius Level 3 sea surface spiciness standard mapped image data contains gridded 1 degree spatial resolution spice data averaged over daily, 7 day, monthly, and seasonal time scales. This particular data set is the mission series mean or cumulative, Descending sea surface spiciness product for version 5.0 of the Aquarius data set. Only retrieved values for Descending passes have been used to create this product. 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.

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Complete Metadata
@type dcat:Dataset
accessLevel public
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                                            [
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                                            {
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}
description Aquarius Level 3 sea surface spiciness standard mapped image data contains gridded 1 degree spatial resolution spice data averaged over daily, 7 day, monthly, and seasonal time scales. This particular data set is the mission series mean or cumulative, Descending sea surface spiciness product for version 5.0 of the Aquarius data set. Only retrieved values for Descending passes have been used to create this product. 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.
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identifier 10.5067/AQR50-3PCDE
keyword 
                                            [
  "earth-science-salinity-density-oceans-spice"
]
license https://www.usa.gov/government-works
modified 2026-03-30
programCode 
                                            [
  "026:000"
]
publisher 
                                            {
  "name": "Aquarius Project NASA/CONAE;NASA/JPL/PODAAC",
  "@type": "org:Organization"
}
spatial 
                                            "[[{"EastBoundingCoordinate":180.0,"NorthBoundingCoordinate":90,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-90,"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180.0}],"CARTESIAN"]"
temporal 2011-08-25/2015-06-07
theme 
                                            [
  "Earth Science"
]
title Aquarius Official Release Level 3 Sea Surface Spiciness Standard Mapped Image Descending Mission Cumulative Data V5.0

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