Microwave humidity correction, medium-speed (Copernicus)
What it measures. Measures the atmosphere's microwave brightness to work out how much moisture is in the air along the satellite's path, which is needed to correct ocean-height readings.
How it's made. Generated by the Sentinel-6 AMR-C radiometer, calibrated and delivered within about 36 hours of measurement.
How & where you'd use it. Feeds ocean models and data-assimilation systems as a supporting correction; not a standalone product for general readers.
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 Short Time Critical (STC) product provides medium-latency, calibrated brightness temperature measurements, used to derive wet tropospheric path delay corrections with improved accuracy. Data are organised by full orbital passes and delivered within 36 hours of acquisition. The product supports ocean modelling and data assimilation workflows, and is provided in NetCDF format.
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-stc"], # 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.
Official links
- Open data source Copernicus STAC