NOAA20 VIIRS Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Color for Australian Waters

NOAA20/VIIRS satellite data provides contemporaneous sea surface temperature and water-leaving radiance measurements for waters around Australia. The product is derived from VIIRS 11 and 12 micron spectral bands using a documented algorithm, though it is not a GHRSST-quality product. This dataset matches the temporal and spatial extent of the IMOS Chl_oci ocean color product.

Use Cases

• Modeling net primary productivity based on contemporaneous sea surface temperature and chlorophyll data.
• Analyzing ocean thermal fronts and biological activity based on spatially matched SST and ocean color observations.
• Studying phytoplankton dynamics in Australian coastal waters based on combined optical and thermal satellite data.

Strengths

• Data provides temporally matched sea surface temperature and water-leaving radiance measurements, enabling combined analysis.
• Spatial coverage is focused on waters around Australia, as stated in the description.
• The algorithm for deriving SST from VIIRS bands is documented at a public NASA URL.

Limitations

• The description explicitly states this is not a GHRSST-quality product, limiting suitability for demanding applications requiring high accuracy.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network via data.gov.au, using NOAA20/VIIRS satellite.

Collection Method

Derived from VIIRS 11 and 12 micron spectral bands according to a documented NASA algorithm.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-13 20:00:51.726753; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Waters around Australia.