GHRSST Level 2P NOAA STAR SST v2.80 from VIIRS on S-NPP Satellite

Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), starting with S-NPP launched on 28 October 2011, is the new generation of the US Polar Operational Environmental Satellites (POES). NOAA is responsible for all JPSS products, including SST from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The L2P SST product is derived at the native sensor resolution (~0.75 km at nadir, ~1.5 km at swath edge) using NOAA's Advanced Clear-Sky Processor for Ocean (ACSPO) system, and reported in 10-minute granules in netCDF4 format, compliant with the Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) Data Specification version 2 (GDS2). SSTs are derived from Brightness Temperatures (BTs) using the Non-Linear SST (NLSST) algorithms (Petrenko et al., 2014). An ACSPO clear-sky mask (ACSM) is provided in each pixel as part of variable l2p_flags, which also includes day/night, land, ice, twilight, and glint flags (Petrenko et al., 2010). Only ACSM confidently clear pixels are recommended (equivalent to GDS2 quality level=5). Per GDS2 specifications, two additional Sensor-Specific Error Statistics layers (SSES bias and standard deviation) are reported in each pixel with QL=5. The ACSPO VIIRS L2P product is monitored and validated against quality controlled in situ data provided by NOAA in situ SST Quality Monitor system (iQuam) using another NOAA system, SST Quality Monitor (SQUAM). A reduced size (0.5GB/day), equal-angle gridded (0.02-deg resolution), ACSPO L3U product is also available at https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/VIIRS_NPP-STAR-L3U-v2.80, where gridded L2P SSTs with QL=5 only are reported. The v2.80 is an updated version from the v2.61 with several algorithm improvements including two added thermal front layers, reduced L2P SST data size, mitigated warm biases in the high latitudes, and improved clear-sky mask.

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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.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date	April 9, 2025
Metadata Updated Date	September 19, 2025

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Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type	Dataset
Metadata Created Date	April 9, 2025
Metadata Updated Date	September 19, 2025
Publisher	NASA/JPL/PODAAC;DOC/NOAA/NESDIS/STAR
Maintainer	Earthdata Forum
Identifier	10.5067/GHVRS-2PO28
Data Last Modified	2025-09-11
Category	Earth Science
Public Access Level	public
Bureau Code	026:00
Metadata Context	https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version	https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby	https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id	cb00bc18-00a8-4b6c-ae08-dedc85cf4881
Harvest Source Id	58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title	NASA Data.json
Homepage URL	https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/CitingPODAAC
Old Spatial	"CARTESIAN",{"NorthBoundingCoordinate":90.0,"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180.0,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180.0,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-90.0}
Program Code	026:000
Source Datajson Identifier	True
Source Hash	41902a311672f16bcaeb00aa803ce46dee1413a830a0e98ea1262c53d33da1bd
Source Schema Version	1.1
Spatial
Temporal	2012-02-01/2012-02-01

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