The following polar-gridded data sets from NASA's Aquarius radiometer and scatterometer on the Satélite de Aplicaciones Científicas (SAC-D) platform are now available at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC):
- Aquarius Level 3 Weekly Polar-Gridded Brightness Temperature and Sea Surface Salinity
- Aquarius Level 3 Weekly Polar-Gridded Sea Surface Salinity (SSS combined from all 3 radiometer beams)
- Aquarius Level 3 Weekly Polar-Gridded Normalized Radar Cross Section
To access data ordering options, documentation, and tools, please see NSIDC's
Aquarius section.
Weekly maps of polar
sea surface salinity and
brightness temperature are posted on the NASA Aquarius website.
These data sets were designed for the monitoring of the polar regions and to improve understanding of L-band observations of ice sheets, sea ice, permafrost, and the polar oceans. The data sets are described in
Brucker et al. (2014a) and an initial analysis of the products over the cryosphere is available in
Brucker et al. (2014b).
Brucker et al. (2014c) focuses on the Aquarius observations at Dome C, Antarctica.
