Sea surface height, low-resolution reduced, unvalidated (Sentinel-6A)
What it measures. Sea surface height anomaly (how high or low the sea sits compared to normal), significant wave height, and wind speed, in a trimmed-down low-resolution version. The data are flagged as unvalidated.
How it's made. A Level-2 low-resolution product from the Poseidon-4 altimeter on Sentinel-6A, in the delayed, fully reprocessed (60-day latency) form, reduced to the core variables.
How & where you'd use it. Supports ocean and sea-level monitoring and wave and wind studies, though the unvalidated label means it should be used with caution for critical work.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2020-11-30 → 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 low resolution (LR) non-time critical (NTC; 60-day latency) measurements of sea surface height anomaly (SSHA), Significant Wave Height (SWH), and Wind Speed. The NTC product is analogous to the Jason-3 GDR product.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="JASON_CS_S6A_L2_ALT_LR_RED_OST_NTC_G01_UNVALIDATED",
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. Official links
- Data Use and Citation Guidelines VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- The mission page for Sentinel-6A MF on the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) website. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- The mission page for Sentinel-6A MF on the NASA Ocean Surface Topography (OST) website. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- The mission page for Sentinel-6A MF on the European Space Agency (ESA) website. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- The mission page for Sentinel-6A MF on the PO.DAAC website. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- The mission page for Sentinel-6A MF on the EUMETSAT website. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Jupyter notebooks to access and manipulate data from Sentinel-6A MF. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Documentation hosted by EUMETSAT including the Generic File Naming Convention, and the Level 1 and Level 2 Product Format Specifications. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION