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Description

A global Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) Level 2P dataset based on retrievals from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). This sensor resides on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi_NPP) satellite launched on 28 October 2011. VIIRS is a whiskbroom scanning radiometer which takes measurements in the cross-track direction within a field of regard of 112.56 degrees using 16 detectors and a double-sided mirror assembly. At a nominal altitude of 829 km, the swath width is 3060 km, providing full daily coverage both on the day and night side of the Earth.
The VIIRS instrument is a 22-band, multi-spectral scanning radiometer that builds on the heritage of the MODIS , AVHRR and SeaWIFS sensors for sea surface temperature (SST) and ocean color. For the infrared bands for SST the effective pixel size is 750 meters at nadir and the pixel size variation across the swath is constrained to no more than 1600 meters at the edge of the swath. This L2P SST v3.0 is upgraded from the v2.0 with several significant improvements in processing algorithms, including contamination detection, cloud detection, and data format upgrades. It contains the global near daily-coverage Sea Surface Temperature at 1-meter depth with 750 m (along) x 750 m (cross) spatial resolution in swath coordinates. Each netCDF file has 768 x 3200 pixels in size, in compliance with the GHRSST Data Processing Specification (GDS) version 2 format specifications.

Product Summary

Platforms
Suomi-NPP
Instruments
VIIRS
Spatial Extent

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

Spatial Resolution
750 Meters x 750 Meters
Geographic Region
GLOBAL
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
CARTESIAN
Temporal Extent
2018-01-30
Data Partner
Naval Oceanographic Office, U.S. Navy, U.S. Department of Defense (DOD/USNAVY/NAVOCEANO) ,
Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA (NASA/JPL/PODAAC)
Concept ID
C1996881636-POCLOUD
Data State
ACTIVE
Number of Files/Granules
2652241
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

Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVO). (2018). GHRSST Level 2P 1 m Depth Global Sea Surface Temperature version 3.0 from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite (GDS2) [Data set]. NASA Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/GHVRS-2PN30 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
adi_dtime_from_sst time difference with NAAPS forecast hour byte -128 -127 to 127 0.1
aerosol_dynamic_indicator Aerosol optical depth provided from the Navy Aerosol Analysis and Prediction System (NAAPS) global aerosol prediction system. count byte -128 -127 to 127 0.006
brightness_temperature_4um non L2P core field; brightness temperature for 3.7 um channel VIIRS M12 kelvin short -32768 -5000 to 5000 0.01
brightness_temperature_11um non L2P core field; brightness temperature for 10.8 um channel VIIRS M15 kelvin short -32768 -5000 to 5000 0.01
brightness_temperature_12um non L2P core field; brightness temperature for 12.0 um channel VIIRS M16 kelvin short -32768 -5000 to 5000 0.01
dt_analysis Deviation from NAVOCEANO 10-km SST gridded field (K10) kelvin byte -128 -127 to 127 0.1
l2p_flags no retrieval made on land or ice. SST over lakes and river are not identified N/A short 2048 0 to 2047 1
lat Latitude of retrievals degrees_north float N/A -90 to 90 1
lon Longitude of retrievals degrees_east float N/A -180 to 180 1
quality_level Based on NAVOCEANO reliability estimates N/A byte 0 0 to 5 1
satellite_zenith_angle satellite zenith angle angular degree byte -128 -127 to 127 1
sea_surface_temperature SST obtained by regression from buoy measurements at 1 m depth kelvin short -32768 -5000 to 5000 0.01
sses_bias Updated daily based on previous month match-ups kelvin byte -128 -127 to 127 0.01
sses_standard_deviation Updated daily based on previous month match-ups kelvin byte -128 -127 to 127 0.01
sst_dtime none second short -32768 -32767 to 32767 0.25
time seconds since 1981-01-01 00:00:00 seconds since 1981-01-01 00:00:00 int N/A N/A 1
wind_speed wind speed is not available m s-1 byte -128 -127 to 127 0.15
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