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Full catalog/ECCO_L4_SSH_LLC0090GRID_SNAPSHOT_V4R4
ECCO_L4_SSH_LLC0090GRID_SNAPSHOT_V4R4·vV4r4·dataset

Sea surface height, instant snapshots (1 degree)

ECCO Sea Surface Height - Snapshot llc90 Grid (Version 4 Release 4)
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 4 netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Instant snapshots of sea surface height at single moments, rather than daily averages, showing where the sea sits above or below its usual level.

How it's made. Drawn from the ECCO ocean reconstruction, a model fit to many satellite altimeter and in-water observations, captured as point-in-time values on the model's native global grid.

How & where you'd use it. Helpful for researchers who need the exact ocean state at specific moments, for example to start other model runs or to study fast-changing features; the snapshot form complements the daily-average version.

What's measured

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

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 instantaneous dynamic sea surface height and model sea level anomaly 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 dynamic sea surface height (SSH) from satellite altimeters [ERS-1/2, TOPEX/Poseidon, GFO, ENVISAT, Jason-1,2,3, CryoSat-2, and SARAL/AltiKa]; dynamic sea surface temperature (SST) from satellite radiometers [AVHRR], dynamic 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_llc0090grid_snapshot_v4r4_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ECCO_L4_SSH_LLC0090GRID_SNAPSHOT_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.