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Full catalog/sentinel-3-sr-2-lan-si-nrt
sentinel-3-sr-2-lan-si-nrt·dataset

Near-real-time sea-ice freeboard, polar oceans (Copernicus)

Sentinel-3 SRAL Land Radar Altimetry - Sea Ice (NRT)
ocean ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. Radar freeboard over Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, meaning how high the ice floats above the surrounding water as seen by radar.

How it's made. Calculated from the SRAL radar altimeter aboard ESA Copernicus' Sentinel-3 satellites as a Level-2 sea-ice product, delivered in near-real time.

How & where you'd use it. Helps estimate sea-ice thickness and track polar ice conditions for shipping safety and climate monitoring.

What's measured

SentinelCopernicusESASatelliteRadarAltimetryLandIceEUEC

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2023-09-20 → ongoing
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90

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 Collection provides Sentinel-3 SRAL Level-2 Land Altimetry Sea Ice products, which contains estimations of the radar freeboard over the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice.

Get the data

copernicus_access.py
# ESA Copernicus Data Space — open STAC API (free account)
from pystac_client import Client

cat = Client.open("https://stac.dataspace.copernicus.eu/v1")
search = cat.search(
    collections=["sentinel-3-sr-2-lan-si-nrt"],   # add _cog or _nc for a format variant
    bbox=(-10, 35, 30, 60),             # your area (W,S,E,N)
    datetime="2024-01-01/2024-12-31",
)
items = list(search.items())            # then read assets with rioxarray / xarray
Browsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.