Salinity Pilot-Mission Exploitation Platform

The platform systematically co-localizes all Level 2 to Level 4 satellite SSS products from all L-band satellite sensors and associated data centers with various pre-processed (QC-controlled) in situ datasets.

For a given satellite/in situ SSS product pair, the results of the co-location are stored in Match-up DataBase (MDB) files provided in NetCDF format to the users.

Match-up data consist of the dataset of satellite and in-situ SSS pairs and also auxiliary geophysical parameters such as local and history of wind speed and rain rates, as well as other information (climatology, distance to coast, mixed layer depth, barrier layer thickness, etc) that can be derived from in situ data.

Match-up files are generated for each available satellite SSS product and all available in situ data for the duration of each satellite product.

The granularity of the match-up files follows that of the input satellite data product files.

The content of the NetCDF files, the in situ QC filtering and the co-localisation methods are described in details in the Match-Up analyses reports available here.

The match-up database facilitates the analysis of consistency of a satellite SSS product with the matched up in situ data and how the consistency depends on conditions of the geophysical environment (e.g., wind speed, rain rate, distance to the coast). The discrepancy between a satellite SSS product with the matched up in situ data is not only due to the error of the satellite SSS product, but also the effect of sampling difference between satellite and in situ SSS (horizontally, vertically, and temporally) as well as the sampling error of in situ SSS on the scales of the satellite SSS.

Match-up files can be accessed using either an HTTP or FTP client using the following menu. To display only the satellite products of a specific processing level, use the drop-down menu "Level" (cf. link for further details on the match-up criteria used for each satellite product level)