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Full catalog/JASON_CS_S6A_L2_ALT_LR_STD_OST_NRT_F
JASON_CS_S6A_L2_ALT_LR_STD_OST_NRT_F·vF·dataset

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

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

What it measures. Quick, lower-detail measurements of sea surface height (how high or low the ocean stands), wave height, and wind speed, available within about three hours.

How it's made. Produced from the radar altimeter on the Sentinel-6A satellite as a near-real-time Level-2 product, similar to the earlier Jason-3 fast-delivery product.

How & where you'd use it. Feeds operational ocean and weather forecasts, including tracking sea level, waves, and winds for shipping and storm prediction.

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, DORIS, GNSS RECEIVER, AMR)
  • 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) near real time (NRT; 3-hour latency) measurements of sea surface height anomaly (SSHA), Significant Wave Height (SWH), and Wind Speed, along with 1 Hz and 20 Hz measurements from the radar altimeter, orbit altitude, environmental range corrections, instrument corrections, and geophysical models. The NRT product is analogous to the Jason-3 OGDR product.

Get the data

jason_cs_s6a_l2_alt_lr_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_LR_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.