Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content
  • Feedback

    • GHRSST Level 2P Global Sea Surface Skin Temperature from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the NASA Aqua satellite (GDS2)

    Metadata Updated: December 7, 2023

    NASA produces skin sea surface temperature (SST) products from the Infrared (IR) channels of the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the Aqua satellite. Aqua was launched by NASA on May 4, 2002, into a sun synchronous, polar orbit with a daylight ascending node at 1:30 pm, formation flying in the A-train with other Earth Observation Satellites (EOS), to study the global dynamics of the Earth atmosphere, land and oceans. MODIS captures data in 36 spectral bands at a variety of spatial resolutions. Two SST products can be present in these files. The first is a skin SST produced for both day and night (NSST) observations, derived from the long wave IR 11 and 12 micron wavelength channels, using a modified nonlinear SST algorithm intended to provide continuity of SST derived from heritage and current NASA sensors. At night, a second SST product is generated using the mid-infrared 3.95 and 4.05 micron wavelength channels which are unique to MODIS; the SST derived from these measurements is identified as SST4. The SST4 product has lower uncertainty, but due to sun glint can only be used at night. MODIS L2P SST data have a 1 km spatial resolution at nadir and are stored in 288 five minute granules per day. Full global coverage is obtained every two days, with coverage poleward of 32.3 degree being complete each day. The production of MODIS L2P SST files is part of the Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) project and is a joint collaboration between the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG), and the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS). Researchers at RSMAS are responsible for SST algorithm development, error statistics and quality flagging, while the OBPG, as the NASA ground data system, is responsible for the production of daily MODIS ocean products. JPL acquires MODIS ocean granules from the OBPG and reformats them to the GHRSST L2P netCDF specification with complete metadata and ancillary variables, and distributes the data as the official Physical Oceanography Data Archive (PO.DAAC) for SST. The R2019.0 supersedes the previous R2014.0 datasets which can be found at https://doi.org/10.5067/GHMDA-2PJ02

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

    Downloads & Resources

    References

    http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2015.04.023

    Dates

    Metadata Created Date December 1, 2022
    Metadata Updated Date December 7, 2023

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from NASA Data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Graphic Preview

    Thumbnail

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date December 1, 2022
    Metadata Updated Date December 7, 2023
    Publisher NASA/JPL/PODAAC
    Maintainer
    Identifier C1940473819-POCLOUD
    Data First Published 2019-12-02
    Language en-US
    Data Last Modified 2019-12-02
    Category GHRSST, geospatial
    Public Access Level public
    Bureau Code 026:00
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Metadata Catalog ID https://data.nasa.gov/data.json
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Citation JPL/OBPG/RSMAS. 2020-01-15. GHRSST Level 2P Global Sea Surface Skin Temperature from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA Aqua. Version 2019.0. MODIS Aqua L2P swath SST data set. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, CA, USA. Archived by National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Government, Jet Propulsion Laboratory. https://doi.org/10.5067/GHMDA-2PJ19. JPL/OBPG/RSMAS, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 2020-01-15, GHRSST Level 2P Global Sea Surface Skin Temperature from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the NASA Aqua satellite (GDS2), Information on the the MODIS SST algorithm can be found in the following documents: http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/atbd/atbd_mod25.pdf and http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/DOCS/modis_sst/.
    Creator JPL/OBPG/RSMAS
    Graphic Preview Description Thumbnail
    Graphic Preview File https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/Podaac/thumbnails/MODIS_A-JPL-L2P-v2019.0.jpg
    Harvest Object Id dcb0da82-27a2-483c-99f9-df06b290aa1b
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    Homepage URL https://doi.org/10.5067/GHMDA-2PJ19
    Metadata Type geospatial
    Old Spatial -180.0 -90.0 180.0 90.0
    Program Code 026:001
    Related Documents http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2015.04.023
    Release Place Jet Propulsion Laboratory, CA, USA
    Series Name GHRSST Level 2P Global Sea Surface Skin Temperature from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA Aqua
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash c123c8a01c4e43c683350a5e995a597c7f413192ad801037bf02e472f107a74f
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 2002-07-04T00:00:00Z/2023-02-28T00:00:00Z

    Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.