Skip to main content
Welcome to GCOS
GCOS Slogan

Main navigation

  • Home
  • About
  • ECV
    • Essential Climate Variables
    • ECV Review
    • About Essential Climate Variables
  • Expert Panels
    • Atmospheric Observation Panel for Climate
    • Ocean Observations Physics and Climate Panel
    • Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate
    • Joint Panels Meeting 2019
    • Joint Panels Meeting 2021
  • Cooperation
    • Cooperation Mechanism
    • Regional Workshops
    • National Cooperations
    • CBS Lead Centres for GCOS
  • Indicators
  • News
  • Networks
  • GCOS Goes Green
  • Publications
    • GCOS Implementation Plan 2022
    • GCOS Implementation Plan 2016
    • GCOS Status Report 2021
    • Publications and Outreach
  1. Home
  2. Essential Climate Variables
  3. Sea Surface Salinity

 

Sea Surface Salinity

Sea surface salinity observations contribute to monitoring the global water cycle (evaporation, precipitation and glacier and river runoff). On large scales, surface salinity can be used to infer long-term changes of the global hydrological cycle. Surface salinity, together with surface temperature, is indicative of the surface expression of ocean frontal features and eddies.
  Domain: Ocean
  Subdomain: Physical
  Scientific Area: Physical Properties
  ECV Steward: Tony Lee
  Products:  Sea Surface Salinity

 


Sea Surface Salinity Map

Figure: NASA Aquarius Mission - SMAP Sea Surface Salinity, April 2016.

Source: https://aquarius.umaine.edu/cgi/gal_smap.htm

 


ECV Products and Requirements

These products and requirements reflect the Implementation Plan 2022 (GCOS-244).

The requirements are found in the complete 2022 ECVs Requirements document as well: ECV Sea-Surface Salinity.

Products   Sea-surface Salinity
  (*) Unit Values
Horizontal Resolution G km 10
B  
T 50-100
Vertical Resolution G   -
B -
T -
Temporal Resolution G d 1-3
B  
T 7
Timeliness G d 7
B  
T 30
Required Measurement Uncertainty (2-sigma) G 1 0.1
B  
T 0.2
Stability G 1/decade 0.01
B  
T 0.1

 

(*) Goal (G): an ideal requirement above which further improvements are not necessary. Breakthrough (B): an intermediate level between threshold and goal which, if achieved, would result in a significant improvement for the targeted application. The breakthrough value may also indicate the level at which specified uses within climate monitoring become possible. It may be appropriate to have different breakthrough values for different uses. Threshold (T): the minimum requirement to be met to ensure that data are useful


Data Sources

This list provides sources for openly accessible data sets with worldwide coverage for which metadata is available. It is curated by the respective GCOS ECV Steward(s). The list does not claim to be complete. Anyone with a suitable dataset who wishes it to be added to this list should contact the GCOS Secretariat.

  • The Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Programme (GTSPP)

https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/GTSPP/access_data/index.html

  • Physical Oceanographic Distributed Active Archive Center (PODAAC)

http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/aquarius

  • Centre Aval de Traitement des Données SMOS (CATDS)

http://www.catds.fr/

  • Argo gridded In situ product

http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Gridded_fields.html/Argo/Products/ISAS-T-S-fie…

EU Copernicus

 

Sponsors

Twitter icon



Copyright | Privacy | Contact