Dataset
ESA Sea Surface Temperature Climate Change Initiative (SST_cci): Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Level 2 Pre-processed (L2P) product, version 3.0
Abstract
This dataset provides global sea surface temperatures (SST) from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR), presented on the native geometry of observation, and spanning 1980 to 2021.
The SST CCI AVHRR product contains two different SST estimates. The first is the skin temperature of the water at the time it was observed. The second is an estimate of the temperature at 20 cm depth at either 1030h or 2230h local time, which closely approximates the daily mean SST. Each SST value has an associated total uncertainty estimate, and uncertainty estimates for various contributions to that total.
The dataset has been produced as part of the version 3 Climate Data Record (CDR) produced by the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative Sea Surface Temperature project (ESA SST_cci). The CDR accurately maps the surface temperature of the global oceans over the period 1980 to 2021 using observations from many satellites, with a high degree of independence from in situ measurements. The data provide independently quantified SSTs to a quality suitable for climate research.
This CDR Version 3.0 product supersedes the CDR v2.1 product. Compared to the previous version the major changes are:
* Longer time series: 1980 to 2021 (previous CDR was Sept 1981 to 2016)
* Improved retrieval to reduce systematic biases using bias-aware optimal methods (for single view sensors)
* Improved retrieval with respect to desert-dust aerosols
* Addition of early AVHRR/1 data in 1980s, and improved AVHRR processing to reduce data gaps in 1980s
* Use of full-resolution MetOp AVHRR data (previously used ‘global area coverage’ Level 1 data)
Data are made freely and openly available under a Creative Commons License by Attribution (CC By 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
When citing this dataset please also cite the associated data paper:
Embury, O., Merchant, C.J., Good, S.A., Rayner, N.A., Høyer, J.L., Atkinson, C., Block, T., Alerskans, E., Pearson, K.J., Worsfold, M., McCarroll, N., Donlon, C. Satellite-based time-series of sea-surface temperature since 1980 for climate applications. Scientific Data 11, 326 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03147-w
Details
Previous Info: |
No news update for this record
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Previously used record identifiers: |
No related previous identifiers.
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Access rules: |
Public data: access to these data is available to both registered and non-registered users.
Use of these data is covered by the following licence(s): https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/licences/specific_licences/esacci_sst_terms_and_conditions_v2.pdf When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record. |
Data lineage: |
Data were processed by the ESA CCI SST project team and supplied to the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) for archiving in the context of the ESA CCI Open Data Portal project and the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO). |
Data Quality: |
For information on the data quality see the related documentation
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File Format: |
netCDF-4 classic following: Climate and Forecast (CF) metadata conventions, GHRSST Data Specification 2.0, and SST CCI Product Specification.
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Related Documents
Process overview
Instrument/Platform pairings
Computation Element: 1
Title | CCI SST Processor v3 |
Abstract | For more information on the derivation of the CCI SST v3 datasets see the Algorithm Theoretical Baseline Document (ATBD) at https://climate.esa.int/documents/2367/SST_CCI_D2.1_ATBD_v3.1-signed.pdf |
Input Description | None |
Output Description | None |
Software Reference | None |
Output Description | None |
- units: m s-1
- standard_name: wind_speed
- var_id: wind_speed
- long_name: 10m wind speed
- units: kelvin
- long_name: Adjustment to alternative sea surface temperature retrieval
- var_id: adjustment_alt
- units: kelvin
- long_name: Adjustment to sea surface temperature at 0.2 m
- var_id: depth_adjustment
- long_name: L2P flags
- var_id: l2p_flags
- standard_name: status_flags
- units: kelvin
- long_name: SSES bias estimate
- var_id: sses_bias
- units: kelvin
- long_name: SSES standard deviation
- var_id: sses_standard_deviation
- units: K/K
- long_name: Sensitivity of the retrieval to actual changes in sea surface temperature
- var_id: sst_sensitivity
- units: kelvin
- long_name: Time and depth adjustment uncertainty
- var_id: uncertainty_correlated_time_and_depth_adjustment
- units: kelvin
- standard_name: sea_surface_skin_temperature standard_error
- long_name: Total uncertainty in sea_surface_temperature
- var_id: sea_surface_temperature_total_uncertainty
- units: kelvin
- long_name: Total uncertainty in sea_surface_temperature_depth
- standard_name: sea_water_temperature standard_error
- var_id: sea_surface_temperature_depth_total_uncertainty
- long_name: Type of retrieval used for the alternate SST retrieval
- var_id: alt_sst_retrieval_type
- long_name: Type of retrieval used for the primary SST
- var_id: sea_surface_temperature_retrieval_type
- units: kelvin
- long_name: Uncertainty from errors likely to be correlated over large scales
- var_id: uncertainty_systematic
- units: kelvin
- long_name: Uncertainty from errors likely to be correlated over synoptic scales
- var_id: uncertainty_correlated
- units: kelvin
- long_name: Uncertainty from errors likely to be uncorrelated between SSTs
- var_id: uncertainty_random
- units: kelvin
- long_name: Uncertainty in alternative SST retrieval from errors likely to be correlated over large scales
- var_id: uncertainty_systematic_alt
- units: kelvin
- long_name: Uncertainty in alternative SST retrieval from errors likely to be correlated over synoptic scales
- var_id: uncertainty_correlated_alt
- units: kelvin
- long_name: Uncertainty in alternative SST retrieval from errors likely to be uncorrelated between SSTs
- var_id: uncertainty_random_alt
- var_id: quality_level
- long_name: quality level of SST pixel
- standard_name: quality_flags
- units: kelvin
- long_name: sea surface skin temperature
- standard_name: sea_surface_skin_temperature
- var_id: sea_surface_temperature
- units: kelvin
- long_name: sea surface temperature anomaly at 0.2 m
- standard_name: sea_water_temperature_anomaly
- var_id: sea_surface_temperature_depth_anomaly
- units: kelvin
- standard_name: sea_water_temperature
- long_name: sea surface temperature at 0.2 m
- var_id: sea_surface_temperature_depth
- units: seconds
- long_name: time difference from reference time
- var_id: sst_depth_dtime
Co-ordinate Variables
- units: degrees_north
- standard_name: latitude
- var_id: lat
- long_name: Latitude coordinates
- units: degrees_east
- standard_name: longitude
- var_id: lon
- long_name: Longitude coordinates
- standard_name: time
- var_id: time
- units: seconds
- long_name: reference time of sst file
Temporal Range
1979-07-13T00:00:00
2021-12-31T23:59:59
Geographic Extent
90.0000° |
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-180.0000° |
180.0000° |
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-90.0000° |