Pacific Ocean Sea Surface Temperature from Himawari-8 Satellite

24 hourly data granules are produced per day from the NOAA/STAR ACSPO Himawari-8 AHI sensor, gridded to a Level 3 Collated (L3C) product. The dataset provides sea surface temperature (SST) measurements over the Pacific Ocean region, compliant with GHRSST Data Specification version 2. It is generated and monitored by the GHRSSTCWIC organization.

Use Cases

• Analyzing diurnal SST variation using the 24 hourly granules and the day/night flag within l2p_flags.
• Validating satellite SST retrievals against the Canadian Met Centre 0.1deg L4 SST reference field provided in the 'ACSPO SST minus reference' layer.
• Filtering for clear-sky ocean conditions using the ACSPO clear-sky mask (ACSM) within the l2p_flags to improve model input quality.
• Assessing uncertainty in SST estimates using the per-pixel Sensor-Specific Error Statistics layers for bias and standard deviation.
• Correlating SST patterns with atmospheric conditions using the co-located NCEP wind speed data layer.

Strengths

• Data volume of 0.2GB per day provides high temporal resolution for analysis.
• Includes per-pixel error statistics (bias and standard deviation) for uncertainty quantification.
• Monitored and validated against iQuam in situ data via the SQUAM system.

Limitations

• SST data over internal waters like lakes or rivers may lack sufficient in situ data for adequate validation.
• Valid SSTs are only reported for clear-sky conditions, leaving gaps in cloudy regions.

Provenance

Source

NOAA/STAR ACSPO project, derived from the Himawari-8 AHI sensor.

Collection Method

Gridded from the ACSPO H08/AHI L2P product into 1hr NetCDF4 granules compliant with GHRSST GDS2.

Time Range

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Freshness

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Geography

Pacific Ocean region, covering clear-sky oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers.