Jason-2 Altimeter GDR-D

OSTM/JASON-2 is a follow-on mission continuing the TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1, and is designed to ensure continuity of high quality measurements for ocean science and to provide operational products for assimilation and forecasting applications. The Jason-2 satellite was launched on 20 June 2008 and reached its nominal repetitive orbit on 4 July 2008. The level-2 X-GDR are available as 3 datatypes: Operational Geophysical Data Records (OGDR), Interim Geophysical Data Records (IGDR) and final Geophysical Data Records (GDR). The OGDRs are near-real-time records and are generated every 3-5 hours. They are based on orbits from DORIS propagator and forecast meteorological fields for the geophysical corrections. The IGDRs are based on preliminary DORIS ephemeris, analyzed meteorological grids, and preliminary auxiliary data files. The IGDRs have a latency of 1 - 2 days. The S-IGDR is a superset of the IGDR, containing the original radar echo "waveform" data. The GDRs are based on final high-precision DORIS (perhaps combined with GPS) ephemeris, final meteorological grids, ancillary and auxiliary data files. The S-GDR is a superset of the GDR, containing the waveform data. The S-GDRs are generated every 10 days. Sea Surface Height Anomaly (SSHA) files are available for IGDR and GDR. All files are available in NetCDF format and the OGDRs are also available in BUFR format. Jason-2 level-2 X-GDR data are distributed through the NOAA/NESDIS Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System (CLASS:http://www.class.noaa.gov). These data are archived at the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) as NODC accession number 0043269 (http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/search/prod/accessionsView.pl/details/43269) and available via FTP at ftp://data.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/jason2, HTTP at http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/jason2 and OPeNDAP at http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/opendap/jason2.