Western Pacific Sea Surface Temperature from MTSAT-1R Satellite

GHRSST Level 2P Western Pacific Regional Skin Sea Surface Temperature from the Multifunctional Transport Satellite 1R (MTSAT-1R) provides hourly skin sea surface temperature (SST) measurements derived from infrared channels of the MTSAT-1R Imager. The dataset is produced by the Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSSTCWIC) following the GHRSST Data Processing Specification version 1.5. It offers full Earth disk imagery over the Asia-Pacific region with a spatial resolution of 4 km for infrared data.

Use Cases

• Analyzing diurnal sea surface temperature cycles using hourly SST measurements.
• Validating oceanographic and atmospheric models with skin SST data from the MTSAT-1R Imager.
• Studying regional thermal features in the Western Pacific using geospatial SST fields.
• Assessing Single Sensor Error Statistics (SSES) for data quality control in satellite-derived SST products.

Strengths

• Provides high temporal resolution data with nominal hourly full Earth disk scans.
• Follows the standardized GHRSST Data Processing Specification (GDS) version 1.5 for consistency.
• Offers detailed spatial information with infrared image resolution of 2,500 pixels (4 km).
• Includes Single Sensor Error Statistics (SSES) for each L2P data point.

Limitations

• Conflicting last updated dates exist between sources (2012-12-26 and 2026-03-05), creating uncertainty about data freshness.
• Specific column names, total row count, dataset size, and license information are not provided by any source.
• Spatial coverage is limited to the Asia-Pacific hemisphere centered on 140 East.

Provenance

Source

Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSSTCWIC) / Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA)

Collection Method

Calculated from IR channels of the MTSAT-1R Imager full resolution data in satellite projection.

Time Range

Data collection began after satellite launch on 26 February 2005; specific end date is unknown.

Freshness

2026-03-05 22:35:38.884394

Geography

Asia-Pacific region, hemisphere centered on 140 East longitude.