MERRA-2 M2T1NXOCN: Hourly Ocean Surface Diagnostics

NASA's MERRA-2 reanalysis provides hourly time-averaged ocean surface diagnostics from 1980 to the present. The collection includes open water skin temperature, latent energy flux, sensible heat flux, and net downward longwave or shortwave flux. Data is produced by the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the GEOS model version 5.12.4.

Use Cases

• Modeling sea surface temperature dynamics based on open water skin temperature data
• Analyzing ocean heat budget components based on latent and sensible heat flux diagnostics
• Studying radiative energy transfer at the ocean surface based on net downward longwave and shortwave flux
• Validating satellite-derived ocean surface parameters against reanalysis data

Strengths

• Data spans from 1980 to present, providing a long-term climate record
• Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the GEOS 5.12.4 model
• Hourly temporal resolution with data time-stamped at the central time of each hour

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Last updated 2026-03-13 00:30:02.105055; freshness should be verified

Provenance

Source

NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO)

Collection Method

Assimilation using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4

Time Range

1980-present

Freshness

Latency of ~3 weeks after the end of a month

Geography

Global, 0.625 x 0.5 degree resolution