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Full catalog/JASON_CS_S6A_L1B_ALT_LR_NTC_G01
JASON_CS_S6A_L1B_ALT_LR_NTC_G01·vG01·dataset

Raw sea-surface radar pulses (Sentinel-6A, low-res)

Sentinel-6A MF Jason-CS L1B P4 Altimeter Low Resolution (LR) NTC Geolocated Waveforms G01
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 1B netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. The raw radar pulse echoes bouncing back from the sea surface, captured at lower resolution, before they are turned into actual sea-level numbers. The signals are geolocated and calibrated.

How it's made. Recorded by the Poseidon-4 radar altimeter on the Sentinel-6A satellite and reprocessed into calibrated waveform data delivered on a roughly 60-day timeline.

How & where you'd use it. A low-level building-block input; most users rely on the higher-level sea-level products made from it rather than working with these raw radar waveforms directly.

What's measured

OCEANS › SEA SURFACE TOPOGRAPHY › SEA SURFACE HEIGHTOCEANS › OCEAN WAVES › SIGNIFICANT WAVE HEIGHT

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2020-11-30 → ongoing
  • Measured bySentinel-6A (Poseidon-4 Radar Altimeter)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-180, -66.15, 180, 66.15
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusACTIVE

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

Provides reprocessed L1B low resolution (LR) non-time critical (NTC; 60-day latency) altimetry data from the Poseidon-4 SAR altimeter on the Sentinel-6A Michael Freilich spacecraft which include the geolocated, fully-calibrated pulse-limited LR power echoes. The S6A NTC product is analogous to the Jason-3 GDR product.

Get the data

jason_cs_s6a_l1b_alt_lr_ntc_g01_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="JASON_CS_S6A_L1B_ALT_LR_NTC_G01",
    version="G01",
    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.