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CYGNSS Level 3 Ocean Microplastic Concentration Version 3.2

Metadata Updated: June 28, 2025

The CYGNSS L3 Ocean Microplastic Concentration V3.2 dataset is provided by the CYGNSS Science Team of the University of Michigan.CYGNSS was launched on 15 December 2016, it is a NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder Mission that was launched with the purpose of collecting the first frequent space‐based measurements of surface wind speeds in the inner core of tropical cyclones. Originally made up of a constellation of eight micro-satellites, the observatories provide nearly gap-free Earth coverage using an orbital inclination of approximately 35° from the equator, with a mean (i.e., average) revisit time of seven hours and a median revisit time of three hours.This dataset contains the version 3.2 CYGNSS Level 3 ocean microplastic concentration data record, which provides daily netCDF files, each file containing a gridded map of microplastic number density (#/km^2). Microplastic concentration number density is indirectly estimated by an empirical relationship between ocean surface roughness and wind speed (Evans and Ruf, 2021). User caution is advised in regions containing independent, non-correlative factors affecting ocean surface roughness, such as anomalous atmospheric conditions within the Intertropical Convergence Zone, biogenic surfactants (such as algal blooms), oil spills, etc. This product reports microplastic concentration on a daily temporal and 0.25-degree latitude/longitude spatial grid with 30-day, 1 degree latitude/longitude feature resolution, as constrained by the binning and spatial temporal averaging of the Mean Square Slope (MSS) anomaly (i.e., difference between measured and predicted ocean surface roughness for a given wind speed). Version 3.2 uses CYGNSS MSS measurements that are derived from updated v3.2 Level 1 scattering cross section data and has updated the parameterizations in the data processing algorithm to use v3.2 data correctly.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date June 28, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date June 28, 2025
Publisher NASA/ESSP/UMICH/CYGNSS;NASA/JPL/PODAAC
Maintainer
Identifier 10.5067/CYGNS-L3P32
Data Last Modified 2025-06-25
Category Earth Science
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 2ec6cb78-9747-4368-abf7-07f961fc0feb
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Old Spatial "CARTESIAN",{"NorthBoundingCoordinate":37.4,"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180.0,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180.0,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-37.4}
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 682b1be5baa089085507e58ece832ec421f79d6bdee0e50a6e1df521dffff094
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial

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