Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/JASON_CS_S6A_L2_ALT_HR_STD_OST_NRT_F
JASON_CS_S6A_L2_ALT_HR_STD_OST_NRT_F·vF·dataset

Sea-surface height, high-res, near real-time (Sentinel-6A)

Sentinel-6A MF Jason-CS L2 P4 Altimeter High Resolution (HR) NRT Ocean Surface Topography
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 2 netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Higher-detail near-real-time ocean surface measurements: sea surface height and its anomalies, plus wave height, with both coarse and fine sampling along the track.

How it's made. Produced from the Poseidon-4 SAR radar altimeter on the Sentinel-6A satellite, with corrections and water-vapor and wind data from an onboard radiometer, available within about three hours.

How & where you'd use it. Feeds operational ocean and weather forecasts that need finer-resolution sea level and wave information, such as coastal and storm monitoring.

What's measured

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

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2020-12-07 → ongoing
  • Measured bySentinel-6A (Poseidon-4 Radar Altimeter, AMR-C, DORIS, GNSS RECEIVER)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • 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 L2 high resolution (HR) near real time (NRT; 3-hour latency) altimetry from the Poseidon-4 SAR altimeter on the Sentinel-6A Michael Freilich spacecraft. It contains Sea Surface Height (SSH), Sea Surface Height Anomalies (SSHA) and Significant Wave Height (SWH), along with 1 Hz and 20 Hz Ku-band measurements processed from L1B altimetry including the range, orbital altitude, time, and water vapour. It also includes altimetry corrections, significant wave height and wind-speed from the AMR-C. This standard product release provides the geophysical parameters at both 1 and 20 Hz. The S6A NRT product is analogous to the Jason-3 OGDR product.

Get the data

jason_cs_s6a_l2_alt_hr_std_ost_nrt_f_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="JASON_CS_S6A_L2_ALT_HR_STD_OST_NRT_F",
    version="F",
    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.