MODIS Terra: Monthly Nighttime Sea Surface Temperature at 9km Resolution

NASA MODIS Terra Level 3 SST MID-IR Monthly 9km Nighttime V2019.0 provides spatially gridded global skin sea surface temperature (SST) data. The dataset includes a nighttime SST4 product derived from unique mid-infrared channels for lower uncertainty. Data is produced by the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group and distributed by the Physical Oceanography Data Archive (PO.DAAC).

Use Cases

• Modeling ocean-atmosphere heat exchange based on global skin sea surface temperature measurements.
• Analyzing long-term sea surface temperature trends based on monthly aggregated satellite data.
• Studying diurnal temperature variation by comparing the described nighttime SST4 product with daytime observations.
• Validating other SST datasets or climate models using the MODIS-derived data with its described lower uncertainty at night.

Strengths

• Data is sourced from the NASA MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite, launched December 18, 1999.
• Includes a specialized SST4 product derived from mid-infrared channels, which the description states has lower uncertainty at night.
• Spatial resolution is specified as 9.26 km in the dataset title and description.
• The dataset is versioned (V2019.0), superseding a previous v2014.1 release.

Limitations

• 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 (NASA) Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG)

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite, binned and mapped into an equidistant cylindrical projection.

Time Range

Temporal coverage is not explicitly stated, but the satellite was launched in 1999.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 23:55:14.396328; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global spatial coverage over oceans.