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Full catalog/IASI_SST_METOP_B-OSISAF-L2P-v1.0
IASI_SST_METOP_B-OSISAF-L2P-v1.0·v1·dataset

How warm the sea surface is (MetOp-B IASI, per-pass)

GHRSST Level 2P Global skin Sea Surface Temperature from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) on the Metop-B satellite (GDS V2) produced by OSI SAF
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 2P netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. How warm the very top skin of the sea surface is, measured for each satellite pass at about 12-km detail near the center of the swath.

How it's made. Derived in near real time from the IASI infrared instrument on Europe's MetOp-B satellite, which reads the infrared energy radiating from the sea surface, following the international GHRSST data standard.

How & where you'd use it. Feeds weather forecasting, ocean monitoring, and climate work, and combines well with other sea-surface temperature sources to build complete ocean-temperature maps.

What's measured

OCEANS › OCEAN TEMPERATURE › SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE › Skin Sea Surface Temperature

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2016-01-07 → ongoing
  • Measured byMETOP-B (IASI)
  • Processing levelLevel 2P
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusACTIVE

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

A Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) Level 2P dataset based on multi-channel sea surface temperature (SST) retrievals generated in real-time from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) on the European Meteorological Operational-B (MetOp-B)satellite (launched 17 Sep 2012). The European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT),Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF) is producing SST products in near realtime from METOP/IASI. The Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) measures inthe infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum at a horizontal resolution of 12 km at nadir up to40km over a swath width of about 2,200 km. With 14 orbits in a sun-synchronous mid-morningorbit (9:30 Local Solar Time equator crossing, descending node) global observations can beprovided twice a day. The SST retrieval is performed and provided by the IASI L2 processor atEUMETSAT headquarters. The product format is compliant with the GHRSST Data Specification(GDS) version 2.

Get the data

iasi_sst_metop_b-osisaf-l2p-v1.0_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="IASI_SST_METOP_B-OSISAF-L2P-v1.0",
    version="1",
    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.