NOAA-20 VIIRS: Regional Day/Night Sea Surface Temperature Data

The Visible and Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on the NOAA-20 satellite provides sea surface temperature data. VIIRS is the successor to MODIS and has 22 spectral bands, including 16 moderate-resolution bands, 5 image-resolution bands, and one day-night band. This dataset, version R2024.0, is produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and was last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Monitoring regional ocean warming trends based on 11µm infrared sea surface temperature measurements.
• Calibrating and validating ocean circulation models using day/night temperature observations.
• Studiating diurnal temperature variability in ocean surfaces using the day-night band (DNB) capability.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of sea surface temperature for climate research based on the 750m and 375m resolution bands.

Strengths

• Data originates from the VIIRS instrument, the successor to the widely-used MODIS sensor.
• Provides measurements at multiple resolutions, including 750m moderate-resolution and 375m image-resolution bands.
• Includes a dedicated day-night band (DNB) for diurnal cycle observation.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected by the Visible and Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-20 (JPSS) satellite.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 23:14:20.522674; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Regional coverage, likely global oceans given the satellite platform.