AVISO Sea Surface Height

AVISO sea surface height (SSH) data

Gridded sea surface heights above the geoid. Dynamic topography is the sum of sea level anomaly (SLA) and mean dynamic topography

Metadata: http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/documents/data/tools/hdbk_duacs.pdf (PDF)
Spatial Resolution: 0.333 degrees (~30km)
Extent: Global
Temporal Resolution: Daily
Date Range: 10/1992 - current
Format(s): NetCDF, KMZ (after 03/2007)
Access Methods: HTTP/FTP, OpenDAP, LAS
Data Access: http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/en/data/products/sea-surface-height-products/global/madt/index.html#c5132
CoML visualization guidance: TBD

Use Example

In this example, you will download GIS-compatible raster images for an Aviso SSH product. These instructions assume local access to ESRI's ArcGIS software - access to ArcGIS via remote desktop is also available. These instruction require the Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools (MGET) for ArcGIS.

In the ArcGIS ArcToolbox window, go to Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools -> Data Products -> Aviso --> Sea Surface Height Products.
Open the tool named Create Rasters for Aviso SSH Product.
Enter values for the Aviso Username and Aviso Password parameters. At the time of this writing, you must enter "aviso-users" and "grid2010" as the username and password, without quotation marks. Even if you obtained an account from Aviso for accessing their data, that account would not work here. It only worked on the Aviso FTP server; the MGET tool uses the Aviso OPeNDAP server, which had not been integrated with Aviso's security system yet.
Choose an Aviso Sea Surface Height Product from the drop-down list.
For the Output Workspace, select a file system directory to receive the rasters.
Under the Spatiotemporal Extent options, specify a Start Date and End Date for a small range of time such as one month. If you do not specify these, the tool will download the entire Aviso dataset, which could take a long time.
Run the tool.