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Full catalog/JASON_CS_S6A_L3_ALT_LR_OST_NTC_G01
JASON_CS_S6A_L3_ALT_LR_OST_NTC_G01·vG01·dataset

Sea surface height, low-resolution unfiltered (Sentinel-6A)

Sentinel-6A MF Jason-CS L3 P4 Altimeter Low Resolution (LR) NTC Ocean Surface Topography (Unfiltered) Version G01
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 3 netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Sea surface height and related sea-state figures from a wider, lower-resolution view, presented as 'unfiltered' values that have been resampled or averaged across orbits but not smoothed further.

How it's made. The same radar altimeter on Sentinel-6A produces these, processed to a higher level (gridded and adjusted) with a roughly 60-day delay for accuracy.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for studying ocean currents and long-term sea-level change. The unfiltered form lets researchers apply their own smoothing choices.

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)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • 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 L3 low resolution (LR) non-time critical (NTC; 60-day latency) altimetry from the Poseidon-4 SAR altimeter on the Sentinel-6A Michael Freilich spacecraft, which includes the unfiltered geophysical sea-state parameters that have been spatially and/or temporally resampled or corrected, including potential averaging over multiple orbits. The S6A NTC product is analogous to the Jason-3 GDR product.

Get the data

jason_cs_s6a_l3_alt_lr_ost_ntc_g01_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="JASON_CS_S6A_L3_ALT_LR_OST_NTC_G01",
    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.