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Full catalog/sentinel-6-p4-2-nrt
sentinel-6-p4-2-nrt·dataset

Sea level, waves and wind, fast satellite data (Copernicus)

Sentinel-6 P4 Level 2 Near Real-Time (NRT)
land ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. Reports finished ocean surface readings: how high the sea surface sits, how fast the wind blows over it, and how tall the waves are.

How it's made. From the Sentinel-6 mission's radar altimeter at Level-2, delivered in 10-minute chunks within three hours of measurement.

How & where you'd use it. Used by weather and ocean agencies to monitor seas in near real time and to feed forecasts.

What's measured

CopernicusSentinelEUESAEUMETSATSatelliteGlobalEarth

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 P4 Level 2 Near Real-Time (NRT) product provides low-latency, operational-quality ocean surface data, including sea surface height, wind speed, and wave height measurements. The data are segmented into 10-minute granules per ground station pass and are delivered within three hours of acquisition. The product is optimized for use by meteorological and oceanographic agencies and is provided in NetCDF and BUFR formats.

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-6-p4-2-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.