VIIRS NRT Sea Surface Temperature: Daytime IR Observations

Suomi-NPP VIIRS Level-2 Regional 11µm Day/Night Sea Surface Temperature (SST) - Near Real-time (NRT) Data is produced by NASA's Ocean Biology DAAC. It provides global sea surface temperature derived primarily from daytime thermal infrared observations, intended for quicklook analysis. The dataset includes variables for temperature, bias, standard deviation, and quality flags.

Use Cases

• Detecting ocean fronts and eddies based on sst gradients.
• Monitoring marine heatwaves using the sst time series.
• Driving ecosystem and habitat models when paired with chlor_a, Kd_490, and PAR data.
• Providing boundary conditions for biogeochemical and climate analyses.

Strengths

• Provides near real-time (NRT) data for timely monitoring.
• Includes multiple quality and flag variables (e.g., qual_sst, l2_flags, stdv_sst) for informed analysis.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov suggests established importance.

Limitations

• NRT processing uses less-than-optimal ancillary data and calibration.
• IR-based SST is sensitive to clouds, aerosols, and diurnal warming.
• Metadata completeness is medium; specific row counts, column lists, and exact spatial/temporal coverage are not provided.

Provenance

Source

NASA Ocean Biology DAAC (OB_DAAC) using the Suomi-NPP VIIRS instrument.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via thermal infrared observations.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-10 on nasa_earthdata.

Geography

Global