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Full catalog/AMSRE-REMSS-L2P-v7a
AMSRE-REMSS-L2P-v7a·v7a·dataset

How warm the sea surface is (AMSR-E, per-pass)

GHRSST Level 2P Global Subskin Sea Surface Temperature from the Advanced Scanning Microwave Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) on the NASA Aqua Satellite
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 2P netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. How warm the sea surface is, measured for each satellite pass, even through clouds, along with related ocean conditions the instrument tracks.

How it's made. Retrieved from the AMSR-E microwave radiometer on NASA's Aqua satellite and processed by Remote Sensing Systems, with a fast near-real-time version and a higher-quality final version.

How & where you'd use it. Supports weather and ocean monitoring, climate studies, and any work needing cloud-penetrating sea surface temperature.

What's measured

OCEANS › OCEAN TEMPERATURE › SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE › SUB-SKIN SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2002-06-01 → 2011-10-04
  • Measured byAqua (AMSR-E)
  • Processing levelLevel 2P
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Watch sea-surface temperature and marine heatwaves
  • Spot algal blooms and ocean-colour shifts
  • Support fisheries and coastal monitoring
Official description

The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) was launched on 4 May 2002, aboard NASA's Aqua spacecraft. The National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) provided AMSR-E to NASA as an indispensable part of Aqua's global hydrology mission. Over the oceans, AMSR-E is measuring a number of important geophysical parameters, including sea surface temperature (SST), wind speed, atmospheric water vapor, cloud water, and rain rate. A key feature of AMSR-E is its capability to see through clouds, thereby providing an uninterrupted view of global SST and surface wind fields. Remote Sensing Systems (RSS, or REMSS) is the provider of these SST data for the Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) Project, performs a detailed processing of AMSR-E instrument data in two stages. The first stage produces a near-real-time (NRT) product (identified by "_rt_" within the file name) which is made as available as soon as possible. This is generally within 3 hours of when the data are recorded. Although suitable for many timely uses the NRT products are not intended to be archive quality. "Final" data (currently identified by "v7" within the file name) are processed when RSS receives the atmospheric model National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Final Analysis (FNL) Operational Global Analysis. The NCEP wind directions are particularly useful for retrieving more accurate SSTs and wind speeds. This dataset adheres to the GHRSST Data Processing Specification (GDS) version 2 format specifications.

Get the data

amsre-remss-l2p-v7a_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="AMSRE-REMSS-L2P-v7a",
    version="7a",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from POCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.