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Description

Day and night spatially gridded (L3) global NASA skin sea surface temperature (SST) products from the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the Aqua satellite. Average daily, weekly (8 day), monthly and annual skin SST products at are available at both 4.63 and 9.26 km spatial resolution. Aqua was launched by NASA on May 4, 2002, into a sun synchronous, polar orbit with a daylight ascending node at 13:30, 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. To generate the L3 products the L2 pixels are binned into an integerized sinusoidal area grid (ISEAG) and mapped into an equidistant cylindrical (also known as Platte Carre projection. Additional projection detailed can be found at https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/format/ The NASA MODIS L3 SST data products are generated by the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) and Peter Minnett and his team at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) are responsible for sea surface temperature algorithm development, error statistics and quality flagging. JPL acquires MODIS ocean L3 SST data from the OBPG and is the official Physical Oceanography Data Archive (PO.DAAC) for SST. The R2019.0 supersedes the previous v2014.1 datasets which can be found at https://doi.org/10.5067/MODSA-MO9D4

Product Summary

Platforms
Aqua
Instruments
MODIS
Spatial Extent

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

Spatial Resolution
0.083 Decimal Degrees x 0.083 Decimal Degrees
Location
GLOBAL
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
CARTESIAN
Temporal Extent
2002-07-03
Data Partner
Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA (NASA/JPL/PODAAC) ,
Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG)
Concept ID
C2036877944-POCLOUD
Data State
ACTIVE
Number of Files/Granules
304
Processing Level
3
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

NASA/JPL. (2020). MODIS Aqua Level 3 SST Thermal IR Monthly 9km Daytime V2019.0 [Data set]. NASA Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODSA-MO9D9 Date Accessed: 2026-02-11

Documents

Variables

The table below lists the variables contained within a single granule for this dataset. Variables often contain observed or derived geophysical measurements collected from a variety of sources, including remote sensing instruments on satellite and airborne platforms, field campaigns, in situ measurements, and model outputs. The terms variable, parameter, scientific data set, layer, and band have been used across NASA’s Earth science disciplines; however, variable is the designated nomenclature in NASA’s Common Metadata Repository (CMR). Variable metadata attributes such as Name, Description, Units, Data Type, Fill Value, Valid Range, and Scale Factor allow users to efficiently process and analyze the data. The full range of attributes may not be applicable to all variables. Additional information on variable attributes is typically available in the data, user guide, and/or other product documentation.

For questions on a specific variable, please use the Earthdata Forum.

Name Description Units Data Type Fill Value Valid Range Scale Factor
lat Latitude degrees_north float -999 -90 to 90 1
lon Longitude degrees_east float -999 -180 to 180 1
palette palette N/A ubyte N/A N/A 1
qual_sst Quality Levels, Sea Surface Temperature N/A ubyte 255 0 to 5 1
sst Sea Surface Temperature degree_C short -32767 -1000 to 10000 0.005
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