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    • NASA-SSH Along-Track Sea Surface Height from Standardized Reference Missions Version 1

    Metadata Updated: April 9, 2026

    The NASA-SSH Along-Track Sea Surface Height from Standardized Reference Missions Version 1 dataset produced by NASA provide observations of sea surface height, or sea level, anomaly measured using radar altimeter satellites in the reference mission orbit. These include TOPEX/Poseidon, the Jason series, and Sentinel-6. The data begin in Oct 1992, with data from TOPEX/Poseidon, and continues to the present. In this data set all missions have been referenced to a common baseline, additional quality control has been performed, and errors with wavelengths around one orbital cycle have been reduced.
    The data consist of along-track observations of sea surface height, collected approximately once per second (1 Hz), and are parsed into files containing one day’s worth of data per file. A flag variable is included to allow users to easily select only valid observations, and a variable containing sea surface height with the flag applied and a small amount along track smoothing (~20 km), is suggested for most users.
    Additionally, a “basin” flag variable is provided, along with a table defining it. This allows users to easily select all observations from a specific body of water. The basin flag assigns a number to each point corresponding to a specific ocean basin or lake. A table is included with a text description of each basin number. A text version of that table is available (https://archive.podaac.earthdata.nasa.gov/podaac-ops-cumulus-docs/web-misc/nasa-ssh/basin_name_table.txt). The basin definitions can be downloaded as a shape file from https://archive.podaac.earthdata.nasa.gov/podaac-ops-cumulus-docs/web-misc/nasa-ssh/basin_polygon_files.tar.gz, or as a kml file https://archive.podaac.earthdata.nasa.gov/podaac-ops-cumulus-docs/web-misc/nasa-ssh/NASA-SSH_Basins.kmz.
    New data will be released approximately once per week, with a latency of a few weeks.

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

    Downloads & Resources

    Dates

    Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date April 9, 2026

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from NASA Data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date April 9, 2026
    Publisher NASA/JPL/PODAAC
    Maintainer
    Identifier 10.5067/NSREF-AT0V1
    Data Last Modified 2026-04-06
    Category Earth Science
    Public Access Level public
    Bureau Code 026:00
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Harvest Object Id 00da1798-1110-4175-a79a-93381665f039
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
    Old Spatial {"NorthBoundingCoordinate":90,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-90,"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180},"CARTESIAN"
    Program Code 026:000
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash 348c9797116d8a36f75a654cafb85510514cbeb74a7600e4ec04039e03875475
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 1992-10-25/2026-03-30

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