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Full catalog/ECCO_L4_DENS_STRAT_PRESS_LLC0090GRID_DAILY_V4R4
ECCO_L4_DENS_STRAT_PRESS_LLC0090GRID_DAILY_V4R4·vV4r4·dataset

Ocean water density, layering, and pressure, daily (1 degree)

ECCO Ocean Density, Stratification, and Hydrostatic Pressure - Daily Mean llc90 Grid (Version 4 Release 4)
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 4 netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Daily estimates of how dense ocean water is, how strongly it is layered (stratification), and its hydrostatic pressure, throughout the global ocean. These come from an ocean model fit to observations rather than direct measurements.

How it's made. Produced by the ECCO Version 4 Release 4 state estimate, a 1-degree global run of the MITgcm model adjusted to match many satellite and in-water observations.

How & where you'd use it. Used by oceanographers to study ocean layering and circulation, which influence how heat, carbon, and nutrients move through the sea.

What's measured

OCEANS › OCEAN PRESSURE › WATER PRESSUREOCEANS › SALINITY/DENSITY › DENSITY EARTH SCIENCE SERVICES › MODELS › EARTH SCIENCE REANALYSES/ASSIMILATION MODELSOCEANS › OCEAN PRESSUREOCEANS › SALINITY/DENSITY

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1992-01-01 → 2018-01-01
  • Measured byMODELS · MITgcm
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Watch sea-surface temperature and marine heatwaves
  • Spot algal blooms and ocean-colour shifts
  • Support fisheries and coastal monitoring
Official description

This dataset provides daily-averaged ocean density, stratification, and hydrostatic pressure on the native Lat-Lon-Cap 90 (LLC90) model grid from the ECCO Version 4 Release 4 (V4r4) ocean and sea-ice state estimate. Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) ocean and sea-ice state estimates are dynamically and kinematically-consistent reconstructions of the three-dimensional time-evolving ocean, sea-ice, and surface atmospheric states. ECCO V4r4 is a free-running solution of the 1-degree global configuration of the MIT general circulation model (MITgcm) that has been fit to observations in a least-squares sense. Observational data constraints used in V4r4 include sea surface height (SSH) from satellite altimeters [ERS-1/2, TOPEX/Poseidon, GFO, ENVISAT, Jason-1,2,3, CryoSat-2, and SARAL/AltiKa]; sea surface temperature (SST) from satellite radiometers [AVHRR], sea surface salinity (SSS) from the Aquarius satellite radiometer/scatterometer, ocean bottom pressure (OBP) from the GRACE satellite gravimeter; sea ice concentration from satellite radiometers [SSM/I and SSMIS], and in-situ ocean temperature and salinity measured with conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) sensors and expendable bathythermographs (XBTs) from several programs [e.g., WOCE, GO-SHIP, Argo, and others] and platforms [e.g., research vessels, gliders, moorings, ice-tethered profilers, and instrumented pinnipeds]. V4r4 covers the period 1992-01-01T12:00:00 to 2018-01-01T00:00:00.

Get the data

ecco_l4_dens_strat_press_llc0090grid_daily_v4r4_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ECCO_L4_DENS_STRAT_PRESS_LLC0090GRID_DAILY_V4R4",
    version="V4r4",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from POCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.