MODIS Aqua: Annual Nighttime Sea Surface Temperature at 9km Resolution

Global skin sea surface temperature (SST) data collected by NASA's Aqua satellite MODIS instrument. The dataset provides annual nighttime averages at a 9.26 km spatial resolution, derived from thermal infrared and mid-infrared wavelength channels. The data is processed by the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group and Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

Use Cases

• Monitor long-term trends in global ocean warming based on annual nighttime SST averages.
• Validate and calibrate other sea surface temperature models using the MODIS-derived SST4 product.
• Study regional ocean heat content and thermal anomalies using spatially gridded temperature data.
• Assess algorithm performance for continuity with heritage NASA sensors using the modified nonlinear SST algorithm.

Strengths

• Provides two distinct SST products: skin SST (NSST) and the lower-uncertainty SST4 product for nighttime.
• Data is available at multiple temporal aggregations: daily, weekly (8-day), monthly, and annual.
• Spatial resolution options include both 4.63 km and 9.26 km grids.
• Algorithm development and quality flagging are handled by a specialized team at RSMAS.

Limitations

• The SST4 product, which has lower uncertainty, can only be used at night due to sun glint.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Spatially gridded (L3) products generated from L2 pixels binned into an integerized sinusoidal area grid and mapped to an equidistant cylindrical projection.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 00:26:58.934079; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global