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The salinity of seawater at the ocean surface can be remotely sensed using microwave frequencies. Currently, this technique is valid for open ocean measurements, while recognizing decreased sensitivity for colder water. Measurements within approximately 50 km of land are biased by land contamination and less accurate. Salinity is a defining parameter for ocean dynamics and can also serve as a proxy for certain biogeochemical processes.
The sea surface height team in NOAA’s Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry produces two experimental mesoscale eddy products:
The NOAA CoastWatch MA Monitor provides the real-time delivery status of all Moderate Assurance (MA) products.
This OceanWatch Monitor provides an easy way for CoastWatch users to assess the state of the available products at one location (under one URL). The current capability includes monitoring of five different environmental data record (EDRs): Ocean Color (OC) Chlorophyll-a, Sea Surface Height (SSH), Sea Surface Salinity (SSS), Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Sea Surface Wind (SSW) aka Ocean Surface Vector Wind. The OM framework is flexible to accommodate newer products for existing EDRs, and scalable for adding a newer EDR. Besides product monitoring within a given EDR family, it is envisioned to allow a joint analysis of different EDRs under an inter-thematic module. However, not all available CW products have been included in the monitor yet and this will be done incrementally. Likewise, the various data sets may have different latencies depending on their scientific needs. See Quickstart Userguide for more information.
This Data Availability Dashboard gives a concise report of product availability and a quick look at a bulk time series to monitor for product stability
The CDN Moderate Assurance Monitor displays a daily report for current and past availability of all Moderate Assurance (MA) products.
CoastWatch/OceanWatch produces 0.25-degree longitude/latitude Level-3 gridded sea-surface salinity (SSS) daily and 3-day mean datasets by box averaging European Space Agency (ESA) Soil Moisture – Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission’s Microwave Imaging Radiometer with Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS) satellite observations over the global ocean.
CoastWatch/OceanWatch produces 0.25-degree longitude/latitude Level-3 gridded sea-surface salinity (SSS) daily mean dataset by box averaging Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite observations over the global ocean.
