New Baltic SMOS Sea Surface Salinity products

We are pleased to announce the publication of the first dedicated SMOS Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) products for the Baltic basin produced at BEC. These new SMOS Sea Surface Salinity products specific for the Baltic region have been created under the funded ESA project ITT Baltic+ Salinity dynamics (4000126102/18/I-BG).

This basin is one of the most challenging regions for the satellite SSS retrieval. The available EO-based SSS products are quite limited in terms of spatio-temporal coverage and quality. This is mainly due to technical limitations that strongly affect the brightness temperatures (TB), such as the high contamination by interferences and the contamination close to land and ice edges. Moreover, the sensitivity of TB to SSS changes is very low and dielectric models present limitations in this low salinity regime.

 Baltic+ L4 SSS product for the year 2018.

The Baltic BEC L3 and L4 SSS products comprise 9 years (2011-2019) and have the following spatial and temporal resolutions: 9 days and 0.25 degrees for the L3, and daily and 0.05 degrees for the L4. A detailed explanation of the product algorithms and validation can be found in BEC SMOS SSS Baltic Product Description document (BEC_PD_SSS_Baltic_L3_L4.pdf). Please, do not hesitate to contact us in case you have any question or comment at smos-bec@icm.csic.es. Your feedback is most welcome!

Enjoy the products!

The BEC Team