How warm the sea surface is, gap-filled microwave map
What it measures. A daily, gap-free map of sea surface temperature across the global ocean at quarter-degree detail.
How it's made. Produced by blending data from several microwave satellite sensors using a method called optimal interpolation; because microwaves see through clouds, the result has no cloud gaps. No buoy data is used.
How & where you'd use it. Provides a complete daily picture of ocean temperature for weather, climate, and marine studies, valuable precisely because it fills in cloudy areas other sensors miss.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span1997-12-31 → ongoing
- Measured byGCOM-W1 (AMSR2) · GPM (GMI) · Aqua (AMSR-E) · TRMM (TMI) · CORIOLIS (WINDSAT)
- Processing levelLevel 4
- 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) global Level 4 sea surface temperature analysis produced daily on a 0.25-degree grid at Remote Sensing Systems. This product uses optimal interpolation (OI) from microwave (MW) sensors including the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI), the NASA Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS (AMSR-E), the WindSat on the Coriolis satellite, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Microwave Imager (GMI), and the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) onboard the GCOM-W1 satellite. These MW sensors are used through the SST production based on the sensor data availability. The through-cloud capabilities of microwave radiometers provide a valuable picture of global sea surface temperature (SST). This analysis does not use any in situ SST data such as drifting buoy SST. Compared with the previous version 5.0 dataset, version 5.1 is processed using updated input files, the sensor-specific error statistics (SSES) for each microwave sensor are updated, and deficiencies in the OI processing have been addressed.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="MW_OI-REMSS-L4-GLOB-v5.1",
version="5.1",
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. Official links
- Data Use and Citation Guidelines VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Documentation on the GDS version 2 format specification VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Generic Data Readers VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- GHRSST Project homepage VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- GHRSST Information VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Full details of the OISST Project VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Browse and download granules over HTTPS using the virtual directories GET DATA
- Browse granule search results in Earthdata Search GET DATA