MODIS Terra: Global Sea Surface Temperature Satellite Data

NASA MODIS Terra Level 3 SST Thermal IR 8 Day 4km Nighttime V2019.0 provides spatially gridded global skin sea surface temperature (SST) data from the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer onboard the Terra satellite. The dataset includes average daily, weekly (8 day), monthly, and annual SST products at 4.63 and 9.26 km spatial resolution, derived from long-wave IR and mid-IR channels. The data is generated by the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group and distributed by JPL as part of the Physical Oceanography Data Archive.

Use Cases

• Monitor global ocean temperature trends based on daily, weekly, monthly, and annual SST averages.
• Analyze nighttime sea surface temperature patterns using the SST4 product derived from mid-infrared channels.
• Study regional ocean thermal dynamics based on data binned into an integerized sinusoidal area grid.
• Validate climate models using spatially gridded SST data at 4.63 and 9.26 km resolution.

Strengths

• Data is derived from 36 spectral bands captured by the MODIS instrument.
• Includes two SST products: skin SST for day/night and SST4 with lower uncertainty for night.
• Products are available at two spatial resolutions: 4.63 km and 9.26 km.
• Dataset supersedes previous version v2014.1, indicating algorithm updates.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Spatially gridded (L3) products generated by binning L2 pixels into an integerized sinusoidal area grid and mapping into an equidistant cylindrical projection.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 00:26:08.397647; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global