NASA’s Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) has made an initial release of datasets from the Sentinel-6B radar altimeter mission, which aims to provide high-precision measurements of global sea-level that build upon the extensive record of observation from the previous Jason series of altimetry missions.
This release includes the level 1B (L1B) and level 2 (L2) low-resolution (LR) altimetry from the Poseidon-4 (P4) SAR altimeter and geophysical information from the Advanced Microwave Radiometer (AMR-C). Calibration and validation (cal/val) is complete for the near real-time (NRT) and short time-critical (STC) datasets, so future acquisitions will be accessible to users immediately after delivery to PO.DAAC. The data detailed in this release are available with a start date of July 16, 2026. The NRT and STC datasets are delivered approximately 3 and 36 hours after acquisition, respectively.
L2 altimetry datasets are provided in “standard” and “reduced” forms. Sea Surface Height Anomaly (SSHA), Significant Wave Height (SWH), and Wind Speed are included in all L2 altimetry datasets. Standard datasets also include both 1 Hz and 20 Hz measurements from the P4 radar altimeter, orbit altitude, environmental range corrections, instrument corrections, and geophysical models. Please also see the Product Notice that describes this release.
The datasets are described and discoverable via Earthdata Search.