NOAA-20 VIIRS: Global Binned Sea Surface Temperature Data

Global sea surface temperature data derived from the Visible and Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard the NOAA-20 satellite. The instrument has 22 spectral bands, including 16 moderate-resolution and 5 image-resolution bands, and is the successor to MODIS for Earth science products. The dataset is produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and was last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling global ocean heat flux based on triple-window sea surface temperature retrievals
• Calibrating and validating climate models based on satellite-derived temperature data
• Analyzing diurnal and seasonal sea surface temperature variability based on binned, multi-spectral observations
• Monitoring marine heatwave events based on global, binned temperature data

Strengths

• Data originates from the VIIRS instrument, which has 22 spectral bands for detailed observation
• Dataset represents a successor to the MODIS instrument for Earth science data generation
• Last updated in March 2026, suggesting recent processing

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

Satellite remote sensing data from the VIIRS instrument on the NOAA-20 spacecraft, processed to Level-3 binned global products.

Time Range

Temporal coverage is not explicitly stated in the provided input.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 23:16:59.181848

Geography

Global