The Level 4 Multi-scale Ultra-high Resolution (MUR) Sea Surface Temperature (SST) data processing has recently been updated to use the Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) L2P SST data inputs from the NASA Earthdata Cloud (AWS-West2) in accordance with the transition of NASA’s Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) data and services to be 100% in the cloud by mid-Spring 2023. This update will not impact users of the MUR datasets and the change is transparent, fully tested, and vetted. The update occurred on March 13, 2023.
However, in the recent timeline of MUR production several events occurred unrelated to this processing update. The MUR 1km and MUR25 Level 4 SST datasets have recently not included SST data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) sensor on Global Change Observation Mission for Water (GCOM-W) as part of the fusion algorithm. This was due in part to the data provider reprocessing the AMSR2 from v8a to v8.2 that resulted in a data gap at the PO.DAAC, and other ingest issues.
The microwave SST AMSR2 data returned to the MUR products on Monday, Feb. 27. The exact gap was Dec. 17, 2022 to Feb. 27, 2023. Some loss of SST fidelity in the MUR products will be found during this period.