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

Sea-level, waves and wind, medium-speed (Copernicus)

Sentinel-6 P4 Level 2 Short Time Critical (STC)
land ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. Gives ocean surface readings of sea surface height, surface wind speed, and wave height with reliable quality.

How it's made. From the Sentinel-6 radar altimeter at Level-2, organized by pole-to-pole orbits and delivered within about 36 hours.

How & where you'd use it. Well suited to ocean modelling and forecast systems that need fairly fresh, dependable sea-state data.

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 Short Time Critical (STC) product provides medium-latency ocean surface data, including sea surface height, wind speed, and wave height, tailored for ocean modelling and assimilation purposes. The data are organized by full satellite passes (pole-to-pole) and are delivered within 36 hours of acquisition. The product is available in NetCDF format and ensures consistent quality for near-operational applications.

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-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.