GHRSST Level 2P: Global Sea Surface Skin Temperature from MODIS/Terra

NASA produces skin sea surface temperature (SST) products from the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the Terra satellite. The data has a 1 km spatial resolution at nadir, is stored in 288 five-minute granules per day, and provides full global coverage every two days. This R2019.0 dataset is a joint collaboration between NASA JPL, the Ocean Biology Processing Group, and the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, formatted to the GHRSST L2P specification.

Use Cases

• Modeling global ocean heat content and climate patterns based on high-resolution skin SST measurements.
• Validating and calibrating other satellite or in-situ ocean temperature data based on the dual SST and SST4 product algorithms.
• Studying diurnal warming events and thermal fronts based on day/night observations with 1 km resolution.
• Assimilating near-real-time ocean surface data into weather and climate forecasting models based on the two-day global coverage cycle.

Strengths

• Provides two distinct SST products: a day/night skin SST and a lower-uncertainty night-only SST4 derived from unique MODIS channels.
• Data has a high 1 km spatial resolution at nadir and is produced in a consistent GHRSST L2P netCDF specification with complete metadata.
• Offers frequent temporal coverage with 288 granules per day and complete global coverage every two days.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale processing.
• The SST4 product, which has lower uncertainty, is only available for night observations due to sun glint constraints.

Provenance

Source

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG), Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS).

Collection Method

Satellite measurements from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite, processed and reformatted to GHRSST L2P specification.

Time Range

Terra satellite launched December 18, 1999; dataset version R2019.0 supersedes R2014.0.

Freshness

Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

Global, with coverage poleward of 32.3 degrees being complete each day.