Short Name:
AQUARIUS_L3_SSS_CAP_7DAY_V5

Aquarius CAP Level 3 Sea Surface Salinity Standard Mapped Image 7-Day Data V5.0

Version 5.0 Aquarius CAP Level 3 products are the fourth release of the AQUARIUS/SAC-D mapped salinity and wind speed data based on the Combined Active Passive (CAP) algorithm. Level 3 standard mapped image products contain gridded 1 degree spatial resolution salinity and wind speed data averaged over 7 day and monthly time scales. This particular dataset is the 7-Day running mean sea surface salinity (SSS) V5.0 Aquarius CAP product. CAP is a P.I. produced dataset developed and provided by JPL. The CAP algorithm utilizes data from both the onboard radiometer and scatterometer to simultaneously retrieve salinity, wind speed and direction by minimizing the sum of squared differences between model and observations. The main improvements in CAP V5.0 relative to the previous version include: updates to the Geophysical Model Functions to 4th order harmonics with the inclusion of sea surface temperature (SST) and stability at air-sea interface effects; use of the Canadian Meteorological Center (CMC) SST product as the new source ancillary sea surface temperature data in place of NOAA OI SST. The Aquarius instrument is onboard the AQUARIUS/SAC-D satellite, a collaborative effort between NASA and the Argentinian Space Agency Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE). The instrument consists of three radiometers in push broom alignment at incidence angles of 29, 38, and 46 degrees incidence angles relative to the shadow side of the orbit. Footprints for the beams are: 76 km (along-track) x 94 km (cross-track), 84 km x 120 km and 96km x 156 km, yielding a total cross-track swath of 370 km. The radiometers measure brightness temperature at 1.413 GHz in their respective horizontal and vertical polarizations (TH and TV). A scatterometer operating at 1.26 GHz measures ocean backscatter in each footprint that is used for surface roughness corrections in the estimation of salinity. The scatterometer has an approximate 390km swath.

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