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    • RSS SMAP Level 3 Sea Surface Salinity Standard Mapped Image Monthly V5.3 Evaluation Dataset

    Metadata Updated: April 9, 2026

    The RSS SMAP Level 3 Sea Surface Salinity Standard Mapped Image Monthly V5.3 Evaluation Dataset produced by the Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and sponsored by the NASA Ocean Salinity Science Team, is a evaluation product that provides orbital/swath data on sea surface salinity (SSS) derived from the NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission. 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 1000km swath, SMAP achieves global coverage in approximately 3 days, but has an exact orbit repeat cycle of 8 days. Malfunction of the SMAP scatterometer on 7 July, 2015, has necessitated the use of collocated wind speed, primarily from WindSat, for the surface roughness correction required for the surface salinity retrieval.

    The evaluation 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. 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, and each data file is available in netCDF-4 file format. Observations are global in extent with an approximate spatial resolution of 40KM. Note that while a SSS 40KM variable is also included in the product for most open ocean applications, The standard product of the SMAP Version 5.3 release is the smoothed salinity product with a spatial resolution of approximately 70 km.

    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 RSS;NASA/JPL/PODAAC
    Maintainer
    Identifier 10.5067/SMP53-3SMCS
    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 6a2500a2-7168-40d9-8bbc-2fc8e0bc0a86
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
    Old Spatial "CARTESIAN",{"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180.0,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-90,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180.0,"NorthBoundingCoordinate":90}
    Program Code 026:000
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash b631cea6aac14a9a71cb7b100175f834f64065c68664a5e0756569546d81109a
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 2015-04-01/2024-01-01

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