SMAP RSS Sea Surface Salinity V5.3 Evaluation Dataset Release

[colleen]

The PO.DAAC is pleased to announce the availability of the version 5.3 SMAP Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) evaluation datasets from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and sponsored by the NASA Ocean Salinity Science Team. The SMAP satellite was launched on 31 January 2015 with a near-polar orbit at an inclination of 98 degrees and an altitude of 685 km. It has an ascending node time of 6 pm and is sun-synchronous. With its 1000 km swath, SMAP achieves global coverage in approximately 3 days, but has an exact orbit repeat cycle of 8 days.

The evaluated Version 5.3 is identical to the Version 6.0 validated release with the exception that Version 5.3 uses the Version 5 L1B antenna temperatures (TA) as input. The V6 L1B TA uses a lower TA threshold for RFI exclusion, thus excluding more potential RFI contamination. Until the full back-processing of V6.0 is complete, the evaluation Version 5.3 can and should be used instead. Version 5.3 has been processed from the beginning of the SMAP mission to the end of 2023.

This release includes....

To read entire announcement, please see:
https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/announcements/2024-06-07-SMAP-RSS-SSS-V5.3-Evaluation-Dataset-Release