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Full catalog/ECCO_L4_SSH_05DEG_MONTHLY_V4R4
ECCO_L4_SSH_05DEG_MONTHLY_V4R4·vV4r4·dataset

Sea surface height from a model (ECCO, monthly, 0.5 deg)

ECCO Sea Surface Height - Monthly Mean 0.5 Degree (Version 4 Release 4)
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 4 netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Monthly maps of sea surface height, meaning how high or low the ocean surface sits, which reflects currents, heat, and circulation patterns. Values come from a model rather than direct measurement at every point.

How it's made. Produced by the ECCO ocean model, which runs a physics simulation of the global ocean and sea ice and adjusts it to best match a wide range of real satellite and in-water observations, then maps the result onto a half-degree grid.

How & where you'd use it. Used to study ocean circulation, sea level, and climate in a way that is physically consistent everywhere, including places where direct measurements are sparse.

What's measured

OCEANS › SEA SURFACE TOPOGRAPHY › SEA SURFACE HEIGHT EARTH SCIENCE SERVICES › MODELS › EARTH SCIENCE REANALYSES/ASSIMILATION MODELS

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 contains monthly-averaged dynamic sea surface height interpolated to a regular 0.5-degree grid from the ECCO Version 4 revision 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_ssh_05deg_monthly_v4r4_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ECCO_L4_SSH_05DEG_MONTHLY_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.