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Description

The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) was launched on 4 May 2002, aboard NASA's Aqua spacecraft. The National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) provided AMSR-E to NASA as an indispensable part of Aqua's global hydrology mission. Over the oceans, AMSR-E is measuring a number of important geophysical parameters, including sea surface temperature (SST), wind speed, atmospheric water vapor, cloud water, and rain rate. A key feature of AMSR-E is its capability to see through clouds, thereby providing an uninterrupted view of global SST and surface wind fields. Remote Sensing Systems (RSS, or REMSS) is the provider of these SST data for the Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) Project, performs a detailed processing of AMSR-E instrument data in two stages. The first stage produces a near-real-time (NRT) product (identified by "rt" within the file name) which is made as available as soon as possible. This is generally within 3 hours of when the data are recorded. Although suitable for many timely uses the NRT products are not intended to be archive quality. "Final" data (currently identified by "v7" within the file name) are processed when RSS receives the atmospheric model National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Final Analysis (FNL) Operational Global Analysis. The NCEP wind directions are particularly useful for retrieving more accurate SSTs and wind speeds. This dataset adheres to the GHRSST Data Processing Specification (GDS) version 2 format specifications.

Product Summary

Platforms
Aqua
Instruments
AMSR-E
Spatial Extent

N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180

Spatial Resolution
25000 Meters x 25000 Meters
Geographic Region
GLOBAL
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
CARTESIAN
Temporal Extent
2002-06-01 to 2011-10-04
Data Partner
Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) ,
Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA (NASA/JPL/PODAAC)
Concept ID
C2205553958-POCLOUD
Data State
COMPLETE
Number of Files/Granules
49067
Processing Level
2P
Published
Updated
Science Keywords
Sea Surface Temperature

Citation

Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.

Copy Citation

REMSS. (2014). GHRSST Level 2P Global Subskin Sea Surface Temperature from the Advanced Scanning Microwave Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) on the NASA Aqua Satellite [Data set]. NASA Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/GHAMS-2GR07 Date Accessed: 2025-12-14

Documents

Variables

Variables are a set of physical properties whose values determine the characteristics or behavior of something. For example, temperature and pressure are variables of the atmosphere. Parameters and variables can be used interchangeably. Variable level attributes provide individual information for each variable.

The Name in this table is the variable name. Fill value indicates missing or undefined data points in a variable. Valid range is the range of values the variable can store. Scale factor is used to increase or decrease the size of an object and can be used to correct for distortion. For questions on a specific variable, please use the Earthdata Forum.

Name Description Units Data Type Fill Value Valid Range Scale Factor
cloud_liquid_water non L2P core field kg m-2 byte -128 -127 to 127 0.01
cool_skin non L2P core field K byte -128 -127 to 127 0.01
diurnal_amplitude non L2P core field K byte -128 -127 to 127 0.02
dt_analysis none K byte -128 -127 to 127 0.1
l2p_flags These flags are important to properly use the data N/A short N/A 0 to 2047 1
lat Latitude of retrievals degrees_north float -32768 -89.259995 to 88.85 1
lon Longitude of retrievals degrees_east float -32768 -179.99 to 180 1
quality_level These are the overall quality indicators and are used for all GHRSST SSTs N/A byte -128 0 to 5 1
rain_rate non L2P core field mm hr-1 byte -128 -127 to 127 0.1
sea_surface_temperature SST has the v7a correction applied, described in Gentemann(2014) K short -32768 -5000 to 5000 0.01
sses_bias none K byte -128 -127 to 127 0.01
sses_standard_deviation none K byte -128 -127 to 127 0.01
sst_dtime none second short -32768 0 to 10000 1
time none seconds since 1981-01-01 00:00:00 int N/A N/A 1
water_vapor non L2P core field kg m-2 byte -128 -127 to 127 0.3
wind_speed wind_speed_lf m s-1 byte -128 -127 to 127 0.2
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