Himawari-9 Satellite Sea Surface Temperature for the Pacific Ocean

24 data granules per day provide subskin sea surface temperature measurements for the Pacific Ocean region from 80E-160W and 60S-60N. The NOAA ACSPO system produces this data from the Advanced Himawari Imager on the Japanese Himawari-9 satellite, which became operational in December 2022. The dataset has a total volume of 1.2 GB per day, with near-real-time updates hourly and delayed-mode files available after approximately two months.

Use Cases

• Modeling ocean heat flux and climate patterns based on high-temporal-resolution 10-minute sampling.
• Monitoring marine heatwave events based on spatially detailed 2km at-nadir measurements.
• Validating and calibrating other satellite-derived SST products based on comparison with in-situ data from the NOAA iQuam system.
• Assimilating SST data into numerical weather prediction models based on the near-real-time hourly updates.

Strengths

• High temporal resolution with 10-minute sampling, collated into hourly products.
• Spatial coverage spans a Full Disk area of the Pacific Ocean (80E-160W, 60S-60N).
• Continuous validation against quality-controlled in-situ data via the NOAA SQUAM system.
• Data is provided in a standard GHRSST-compliant netCDF4 GDS2 format.

Limitations

• Pixel earth locations are not reported in each granule and must be obtained from separate files or scripts.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset description does not specify the total historical time range available.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), processed by the NOAA ACSPO system.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing from the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) on the Himawari-9 geostationary weather satellite.

Time Range

Operational data from at least December 2022 onward; specific start date not provided.

Freshness

Near-real-time data updated hourly; last metadata update recorded on 2026-03-13.

Geography

Pacific Ocean Full Disk region: 80 degrees East to 160 degrees West, 60 degrees South to 60 degrees North.