NASA-SSH Along-Track Sea Surface Height from Standardized Reference Missions Version 1.1

The NASA-SSH Along-Track Sea Surface Height from Standardized Reference Missions Version 1.1 dataset produced by NASA provide observations of sea surface height, or sea level, anomaly measured using radar altimeter satellites in the reference mission orbit. These include TOPEX/Poseidon, the Jason series, and Sentinel-6. The data begin in Oct 1992, with data from TOPEX/Poseidon, and continues to the present. In this data set all missions have been referenced to a common baseline, additional quality control has been performed, and errors with wavelengths around one orbital cycle have been reduced.

The data consist of along-track observations of sea surface height, collected approximately once per second (1 Hz), and are parsed into files containing one day’s worth of data per file. A flag variable is included to allow users to easily select only valid observations, and a variable containing sea surface height with the flag applied and a small amount along track smoothing (~20 km), is suggested for most users.

Additionally, a “basin” flag variable is provided, along with a table defining it. This allows users to easily select all observations from a specific body of water. The basin flag assigns a number to each point corresponding to a specific ocean basin or lake. A table is included with a text description of each basin number. A text version of that table, and the basin definitions as a shape file or as a kml file can be downloaded from the associated documentation.

New data will be released approximately once per week, with a latency of a few weeks.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Maintainer Earthdata Forum
Last Updated June 23, 2026, 02:58 (UTC)
Created June 3, 2026, 02:24 (UTC)
accessLevel public
bureauCode {026:00}
catalog_conformsTo https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
harvest_object_id b3a31dc4-9633-490c-b161-74b80c6cef31
harvest_source_id b99e41c6-fe79-4c19-bbc3-9b6c8111bfac
harvest_source_title Science Discovery Engine
identifier 10.5067/NSREF-AT0V11
license https://www.usa.gov/government-works
modified 2026-06-15T22:16:02Z
programCode {026:000}
publisher NASA/JPL/PODAAC
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 8215339658aeea92a3a0dc9e6a0ae2350c5481fdc44012864e10bea364f55626
source_schema_version 1.1
spatial ["CARTESIAN", [{"NorthBoundingCoordinate": 90, "SouthBoundingCoordinate": -90, "WestBoundingCoordinate": -180, "EastBoundingCoordinate": 180}]]
temporal 1992-10-25/2026-06-15
theme {"Earth Science"}