Australian Waters Sea Surface Temperature Seasonal Means, 2002-2017

Seasonal mean sea surface temperatures derived from NASA MODIS satellite imagery between July 2002 and December 2017. The dataset covers the entire Australian Exclusive Economic Zone and surrounding waters, including the Southern Ocean. This research was supported by the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine Biodiversity Hub.

Use Cases

• Modeling marine ecosystem responses to seasonal warming based on long-term temperature means.
• Analyzing climate change impacts on Australian coastal waters based on a 15-year satellite record.
• Calibrating regional ocean circulation models using spatially extensive sea surface temperature data.

Strengths

• 15-year temporal coverage from July 2002 to December 2017.
• Spatial coverage includes the entire Australian EEZ and the Southern Ocean.
• Data derived from NASA's MODIS (Aqua) sensor using the SeaDAS processing software.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Freshness should be verified as the underlying data ends in 2017.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Derived from MODIS (Aqua) images using NASA's SeaDAS software.

Time Range

July 2002 to December 2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 14:53:55.087262; underlying observational data ends in 2017.

Geography

Australian Exclusive Economic Zone and surrounding waters, including the Southern Ocean.