GHRSST Level 3C: Hourly Indian Ocean Sea Surface Temperature from MSG/SEVIRI

GHRSST Level 3C sea surface temperature (SST) data provides hourly, gridded sub-skin temperature measurements for the Indian Ocean. The dataset is derived from infrared channels of the SEVIRI instrument on the Meteosat-8 satellite, processed using a multispectral algorithm corrected with numerical weather prediction models. Products are remapped to a 0.05-degree regular grid and are compliant with the GHRSST Data Specification version 2.

Use Cases

• Monitoring marine heatwaves and ocean thermal fronts based on hourly, high-resolution SST grids.
• Validating and assimilating SST data into numerical weather prediction and ocean circulation models.
• Studying diurnal warming cycles and air-sea heat fluxes using the composited 15-minute data.
• Conducting climate trend analysis for the Indian Ocean region using a consistent, long-term satellite record.

Strengths

• High temporal resolution with data composited from 15-minute satellite slots into hourly products.
• Spatial resolution of 0.05 degrees (~5.5 km) provides detailed coverage of the Indian Ocean.
• Algorithm uses atmospheric correction from numerical weather models to reduce regional and seasonal biases.
• Data format is compliant with the international GHRSST Data Specification (GDS) version 2, ensuring interoperability.

Limitations

• Spatial coverage is conflicting between sources: one states longitude 101.5E-18.5W, another states 135W-15W.
• Key metadata such as row count, file size, license, and precise temporal coverage is unavailable.
• Dataset relies on a single satellite instrument (SEVIRI on Meteosat-8), which is a potential single point of failure.

Provenance

Source

Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF), part of the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) on the Meteosat-8 satellite, with processing at Meteo-France/Centre de Meteorologie Spatiale (CMS).

Freshness

2026-04-01 15:01:56.817314 (from datagov, though this appears to be a future date and may be an error)

Geography

Indian Ocean region, latitude 60S-60N. Longitude coverage is conflicting (see limitations).