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Full catalog/SEA_SURFACE_HEIGHT_ALT_GRIDS_L4_2SATS_5DAY_6THDEG_V_JPL2205
SEA_SURFACE_HEIGHT_ALT_GRIDS_L4_2SATS_5DAY_6THDEG_V_JPL2205·v2205·dataset

Sea surface height ups and downs, gridded map

MEaSUREs Gridded Sea Surface Height Anomalies Version 2205
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 4 netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. A gridded map of how high or low the sea surface sits compared with its long-term average, updated every five days on a fine global grid, with full corrections applied.

How it's made. Built by combining along-track height measurements from a long line of radar altimeter satellites (TOPEX/Poseidon, the Jason series, Sentinel-6, and others), then smoothly interpolating them into a continuous map.

How & where you'd use it. Used to track ocean currents, sea level changes, El Niño and other climate patterns, and to study how ocean heat and circulation are shifting over time.

What's measured

OCEANS › SEA SURFACE TOPOGRAPHY › SEA SURFACE HEIGHT

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1992-10-01 → 2022-12-22
  • Measured byOSTM/JASON-2 (AMR, POSEIDON-3) · JASON-1 (JASON-1 Microwave Radiometer, POSEIDON-2) · TOPEX/POSEIDON (POSEIDON-3B, AMR) · JASON-3 (POSEIDON-3B, AMR) · Sentinel-6A (Poseidon-4 Radar Altimeter, AMR-C)
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • Spatial extent-180, -80, 180, 80
  • 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

This dataset provides gridded Sea Surface Height Anomalies (SSHA) above a mean sea surface, on a 1/6th degree grid every 5 days. It contains the fully corrected heights, with a delay of up to 3 months. The gridded data are derived from the along-track SSHA data of TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, Jason-2, Jason-3 and Jason-CS (Sentinel-6) as reference data from the level 2 along-track data found at https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/MERGED_TP_J1_OSTM_OST_CYCLES_V51, plus ERS-1, ERS-2, Envisat, SARAL-AltiKa, CryoSat-2, Sentinel-3A, Sentinel-3B, depending on the date, from the RADS database. The date given in the grid files is the center of the 5-day window. The grids were produced from altimeter data using Kriging interpolation, which gives best linear prediction based upon prior knowledge of covariance.

Get the data

sea_surface_height_alt_grids_l4_2sats_5day_6thdeg_v_jpl2205_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SEA_SURFACE_HEIGHT_ALT_GRIDS_L4_2SATS_5DAY_6THDEG_V_JPL2205",
    version="2205",
    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.