Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/SASSIE_ECCO_L4_KPP_BOUNDARY_LAYER_LLC1080GRID_DAILY_V1R1
SASSIE_ECCO_L4_KPP_BOUNDARY_LAYER_LLC1080GRID_DAILY_V1R1·vV1R1·dataset

How deep the well-mixed ocean surface layer is (daily)

SASSIE ECCO KPP Boundary Layer Depth - Daily Mean llc1080 Grid (Version 1 Release 1)
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 4 NETCDF4
In plain English

What it measures. Estimates the daily depth of the ocean's well-mixed surface layer—the upper zone stirred by wind and waves—across the Arctic, day by day from 2014 to 2021.

How it's made. Not a direct measurement but output from the ECCO ocean model, which fuses observations with physics to reconstruct ocean conditions, here zoomed in on the Arctic for the SASSIE sea-ice study.

How & where you'd use it. Helps researchers understand how melting sea ice and freshwater affect the Arctic's upper ocean, and supports studies of how the surface layer mixes heat, salt, and nutrients.

What's measured

OCEANS › OCEAN CIRCULATION › OCEAN MIXED LAYEREARTH SCIENCE SERVICES › MODELS › OCEAN GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS (OGCM)/REGIONAL OCEAN MODELS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2014-01-15 → 2021-02-08
  • Measured byMITgcm
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • FormatsNETCDF4
  • StatusCOMPLETE

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

This dataset provides daily-averaged model-simulated KPP boundary layer depths from the SASSIE ECCO Version 1 Release 1 (V1R1) ocean and sea-ice state estimate. ECCO (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean) is a 4D ocean circulation model combining observations with a general circulation model (GCM) to estimate the complete time-evolving state of the global ocean. In this project, it was run over the Arctic polar region in support of the Salinity and Stratification at the Sea Ice Edge (SASSIE) field experiment - a NASA experiment focused on salinity anomalies in the upper ocean generated by melting sea ice. The SASSIE ECCO simulation was produced by downscaling the global ECCO state estimate from 1/3 to 1/12 degree grid cells, where the global solution provided initial and boundary conditions and atmospheric forcing. The output fields for this dataset cover the period 2014-01-15T12:00:00 to 2021-02-07T12:00:00 and are consolidated onto a single curvilinear grid face focusing on the Arctic domain, using the 5 faces of the lat-lon-cap 1080 (llc1080) native grid from the original simulation. Ocean density and pressure are provided at 90 depth levels from 0.5 meters to 6760 meters. Daily files are available in netCDF-4. This dataset is one of 22 produced by SASSIE ECCO - the full list can be found in the user guide. To cite all 22 datasets with a single DOI, please cite the user guide (citation details and DOI can be found within the user guide).

Get the data

sassie_ecco_l4_kpp_boundary_layer_llc1080grid_daily_v1r1_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SASSIE_ECCO_L4_KPP_BOUNDARY_LAYER_LLC1080GRID_DAILY_V1R1",
    version="V1R1",
    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.