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Full catalog/JASON_CS_S6A_L2_ALT_LR_STD_OST_STC_F
JASON_CS_S6A_L2_ALT_LR_STD_OST_STC_F·vF·dataset

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

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

What it measures. Captures the height of the sea surface compared to normal, along with how big the waves are and how fast the wind is blowing over the ocean. It also includes the underlying radar readings and the corrections needed to turn them into accurate measurements.

How it's made. Built from the radar altimeter aboard the Sentinel-6A satellite and processed into ready-to-use ocean measurements at a coarser resolution, delivered within about 36 hours.

How & where you'd use it. Helpful for tracking ocean currents, sea level changes, and wave and wind conditions when a near-final reading (rather than instant data) is good enough for the job.

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 low resolution (LR) short time critical (STC; 36-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 STC product is analogous to the Jason-3 IGDR product.

Get the data

jason_cs_s6a_l2_alt_lr_std_ost_stc_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_STC_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.