Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/JASON_CS_S6A_L2_AMR_RAD_STC
JASON_CS_S6A_L2_AMR_RAD_STC·vF·dataset

Microwave water-vapor correction for sea height (Sentinel-6A)

Sentinel-6A MF Jason-CS L2 Advanced Microwave Radiometer (AMR-C) STC Geophysical Parameters
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 2 netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Atmospheric readings such as water vapor, wind speed, and microwave surface brightness, used to fine-tune sea surface height measurements.

How it's made. Produced from the Advanced Microwave Radiometer on the Sentinel-6A satellite and lined up with the radar altimeter's readings, delivered within about 36 hours.

How & where you'd use it. A correction product that supplies the moisture and atmosphere adjustments needed to make the satellite's sea-height measurements accurate, rather than being used directly.

What's measured

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

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2020-12-06 → ongoing
  • Measured bySentinel-6A (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 L2 short time critical (STC; 36-hour latency) geophysical information from the Advanced Microwave Radiometer on the Sentinel-6A Michael Freilich spacecraft including surface type, wind speed, water vapor, brightness temperature, sigma0, wet troposphere, and associated quality flags. The data are interpolated to intervals that correspond to altimetry measurements from the Poseidon-4 SAR to supply the geophysical and environmental corrections for altimetry. The S6A STC product is analogous to the Jason-3 IGDR product.

Get the data

jason_cs_s6a_l2_amr_rad_stc_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="JASON_CS_S6A_L2_AMR_RAD_STC",
    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.