Microwave humidity sensor for sea-level satellite (Copernicus)
What it measures. Records how bright the atmosphere appears at three microwave frequencies, which reveals how much water vapour the satellite's radar signal had to pass through. That correction keeps sea-level measurements accurate.
How it's made. Collected by the Sentinel-6 mission's AMR-C microwave radiometer, delivered fast in 10-minute chunks within three hours.
How & where you'd use it. A behind-the-scenes input that sharpens sea-level and ocean-height readings; mainly feeds operational sea-level and weather-forecasting systems rather than being read directly.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2021-10-09 → ongoing
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
What you can do with it
- Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
- Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
- Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description
The Sentinel-6 AMR-C Near Real-Time (NRT) product provides low-latency measurements of brightness temperatures at 18.7, 23.8, and 34 GHz, acquired with linear polarisation. These data enable rapid estimation of wet tropospheric path delay and atmospheric attenuation corrections for altimetry in near real-time. The product is segmented into 10-minute granules and delivered within three hours of acquisition, supporting operational sea level and weather forecasting systems.
Get the data
# 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-6-amr-c-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 / xarrayBrowsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.
Official links
- Open data source Copernicus STAC