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Full catalog/S6A_RO_1B_BND_____
S6A_RO_1B_BND_____·v1·dataset

GPS signals bent by the atmosphere (Sentinel-6A)

Sentinel-6A EUMETSAT GNSS-RO Non-Time-Critical Level 1B V1 (S6A_RO_1B_BND_____) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 1B active
In plain English

What it measures. The amount that GPS-style satellite signals bend as they pass through Earth's atmosphere (the bending angle), measured for each occultation event with its precise location. The bending reveals atmospheric temperature and humidity.

How it's made. Generated by EUMETSAT from the radio-occultation instrument on the Sentinel-6A Michael Freilich satellite, at the Level 1B retrieval stage.

How & where you'd use it. Used to build vertical profiles of temperature and humidity through the atmosphere, supporting weather forecasting and climate monitoring.

What's measured

CLIMATE INDICATORS › ATMOSPHERIC/OCEAN INDICATORS › TEMPERATURE INDICATORS › TEMPERATURE VARIABILITYSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › RADIO WAVECLIMATE INDICATORS › ATMOSPHERIC/OCEAN INDICATORS › TEMPERATURE INDICES › COMMON SENSE CLIMATE INDEXSUN-EARTH INTERACTIONS › SOLAR ENERGETIC PARTICLE FLUX › ELECTRON FLUXSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › SENSOR CHARACTERISTICS › GEOLOCATIONSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › SENSOR CHARACTERISTICS › PHASE AND AMPLITUDESPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › MICROWAVECLIMATE INDICATORS › ATMOSPHERIC/OCEAN INDICATORS › TEMPERATURE INDICES

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2020-11-28 → ongoing
  • Measured bySentinel-6A (RO)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

This dataset provides the L1B Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Radio-Occultation (RO) Non-Time-Critical (NTC) retrieval generated by European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) from Sentinel-6A Michael Freilich. The main retrieval variable in this dataset is bending angle. Each granule is for one RO and represented by the nominal geodetic reference location for the occultation, where the latitude and longitude are associated with the moment when the line-of-sight connecting the receiver and transmitter satellites just touches the reference ellipsoid. Sentinel 6 is a collaborative mission between NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and EUMETSAT, with participation from European Space Agency (ESA), the USA's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) of France. These organizations will deliver an operational mission as part of a two-satellite European Copernicus/Sentinel program. The Sentinel-6A Michael Freilich Jason-CS (Sentinel-6A) was launched in November 21, 2020. One objective of Sentinel 6 is to collect high-resolution vertical profiles of temperature and humidity, using GNSS RO sounding technique, to assess temperature and humidity changes in the troposphere and stratosphere and to support numerical weather prediction.

Get the data

s6a_ro_1b_bnd______access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="S6A_RO_1B_BND_____",
    version="1",
    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 GES_DISC
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.