Acronyms Site Map

Le Vine, D.M., Piepmeier, J.R., Dinnat, E.P., de Matthaeis, P., Utku, C., Abraham, S., Lagerloef, G.S.E., Meissner, T., and Wentz, F. (10-Sep-15)

Aquarius was launched on June 10, 2011 as part of the Aquarius/SAC-D observatory and the instrument has been operating continuously since being turned on in August of the same year. The initial map of sea surface salinity was released one month later (September) and the quality of the retrieval has continuously improved since then. The Aquarius radiometers include several special features such as measurement of the third Stokes parameter, fast sampling, and careful thermal control, and a combined passive/active instrument. Aquarius is working well and in addition to helping measure salinity, the radiometer special features are generating new results.