While L3C SMOS sea ice thickness processing has been resumed., the generation of L4 CryoSat-2/SMOS will remain paused for a few more days, pending potential reprocessing of further missing days of SMOS L3C data.
The reason for this is the size of the current SMOS data gap between February 22 and March 7, 2024 (15 days). The L4 CryoSat-2/SMOS near real-time algorithm requires at least one SMOS file in the observations field (7 day period) and in background field (7 days before the observation field). With the 15 day gap either the observation field or the background field are empty and preventing a successful completion of the L4 CryoSat-2/SMOS near real-time data generation.
The situation will change in a few days, or when additional SMOS data in early March is made available.
Figure: Data requirements for the L4 CryoSat-2/SMOS near real-time algorithm.