MODIS Terra: Daily Sea Surface Temperature at 4km Resolution

Daily, weekly, monthly, and annual global sea surface temperature (SST) data from NASA's Terra satellite launched in 1999. The Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) captures data in 36 spectral bands, producing skin SST from infrared channels and a unique SST4 product at night. Data is processed by the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group and distributed by JPL's Physical Oceanography Data Archive.

Use Cases

• Monitoring global ocean warming trends based on daily skin SST measurements
• Analyzing diurnal temperature variations based on separate day and night SST products
• Studying regional ocean heat content based on spatially gridded data at 4.63 km resolution
• Validating climate models based on long-term SST records from a heritage NASA sensor

Strengths

• Data originates from NASA's Terra satellite, a long-term operational sensor launched in 1999
• Provides two distinct SST products: skin SST and a lower uncertainty SST4 product for night observations
• Available at multiple temporal aggregations: daily, weekly (8-day), monthly, and annual

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

Collection Method

Spatially gridded (L3) products generated by binning L2 pixels from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 00:25:43.679531; freshness should be verified

Geography

Global