Sea Surface Salinity
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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
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Figure: NASA Aquarius Mission - SMAP Sea Surface Salinity, April 2016. |
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)
- Physical Oceanographic Distributed Active Archive Center (PODAAC)
- Centre Aval de Traitement des Données SMOS (CATDS)
