Sea Surface Temperature Seasonal Variations from MODIS, 2002-2017

Australian EEZ and surrounding waters are covered by this dataset of sea surface temperature seasonal variations. It contains monthly SST images from July 2002 to December 2017, processed from MODIS (Aqua) satellite imagery using NASA's SeaDAS software to calculate standard deviations for austral seasons. The research was supported by the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine Biodiversity Hub.

Use Cases

• Modeling climate change impacts on ocean ecosystems based on long-term seasonal temperature deviations.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of seasonal temperature variability across the Australian region.
• Validating ocean circulation and climate models using satellite-derived seasonal SST statistics.
• Studying marine biodiversity correlations with seasonal sea surface temperature changes.

Strengths

• Covers a 15-year time range from July 2002 to December 2017.
• Geographic extent includes the entire Australian EEZ and the southern ocean.
• Derived from MODIS (Aqua) satellite imagery processed with NASA's SeaDAS software.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

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

Time Range

July 2002 to December 2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-10 20:18:00.293109; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and surrounding waters, including the southern ocean.