SSDF: Fused Daily Surface Air Temperature for the Continental US

Spatial Statistical Data Fusion (SSDF) combines infrared and microwave sounder data from NASA's Aqua and Suomi-NPP satellites to produce daily, bias-corrected surface air temperature estimates. The algorithm weights measurements from the AIRS and CrIMSS instruments based on their estimated variance to infer values on a consistent ¼-degree grid. This Level-3 product provides a spatially fused, daily record for climate and atmospheric research over the continental United States.

Use Cases

• Analyzing daily surface air temperature patterns over the continental US based on the fused ¼-degree grid.
• Validating climate or weather models using a satellite-derived temperature product that incorporates variance weighting.
• Studying data fusion techniques for remote sensing, as the dataset documents a four-step statistical matching and fusion process.
• Investigating temperature anomalies or trends at a regional scale within the CONUS coverage area.

Strengths

• Integrates data from two major satellite instrument suites (AIRS and CrIMSS) to potentially improve estimate reliability.
• Provides daily, gridded data on a consistent ¼ x ¼ degree latitude/longitude grid, enabling temporal and spatial analysis.
• Employs a documented statistical fusion method that weights input data by estimated variance.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources.
• The license is listed as 'other-license-specified' without details, requiring users to investigate terms.
• Sources show a conflict in the 'last updated' date (2026-04 09 vs. 2020-12-31), casting doubt on metadata freshness.

Provenance

Source

NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES_DISC)

Collection Method

Statistical fusion of bias-corrected Level-2 satellite retrievals from the AIRS (Aqua) and CrIMSS (Suomi-NPP) instruments.

Time Range

Daily products; specific start and end dates are not provided.

Freshness

2026-04-09 20:28:43.641315

Geography

Continental United States (CONUS)