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Full catalog/VIIRS_N20-NAVO-L2P-v3.0
VIIRS_N20-NAVO-L2P-v3.0·v3.0·dataset

How warm the sea surface is (NOAA-20, NAVO)

GHRSST Level 2P NAVO 1 m Depth Global Sea Surface Temperature version 3.0 from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-20 satellite
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 2P netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Sea surface temperature at about 1 meter below the surface, mapped across the globe nearly every day. In plain terms, it tells you how warm the ocean is at a given spot and time.

How it's made. Built from infrared and visible measurements by the VIIRS sensor on the NOAA-20 satellite, processed by the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office into temperature values along each pass at roughly 750-meter detail.

How & where you'd use it. Feeds ocean and weather forecasts, helps track marine heat and currents, and supports fisheries and shipping operations that depend on knowing how warm the water is.

What's measured

OCEANS › OCEAN TEMPERATURE › SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2024-02-20 → ongoing
  • Measured byNOAA-20 (VIIRS)
  • 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

The VIIRS_N20-NAVO-L2P-v3.0 dataset produced by the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVO) derives the 1-meter depth Sea Surface Temperature (SST) from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)-1 satellite, renamed as NOAA-20 (N20). N20 was launched on November 18, 2017, the 2nd satellite in the US NOAA JPSS series. VIIRS L2P SST products are derived at the native sensor resolution (~0.75 km at nadir, ~1.5 km at swath edge) using NAVO's Level-2 SST processor version 3.0 (v3.0). Data contains the global near daily-coverage Sea Surface Temperature at 1-meter depth with 750 m (along) x 750 m (cross) spatial resolution in swath coordinates. Each netCDF file has 768 x 3200 pixels in size, in compliance with the Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) Data Specification version 2 (GDS2). The data record is available back to Feb. 20 2024. The L2P SST v3.0 is the first release at PO.DAAC derived from the L2P SST processor v3.0, which was upgraded from the v2.0 with several significant improvements in processing algorithms, including contamination detection, cloud detection, and data format upgrades. The product is comparable with the NPP VIIRS L2P (https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/VIIRS_NPP-NAVO-L2P-v3.0) and the N21 VIIRS L2P (https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/VIIRS_N21-NAVO-L2P-v3.0) datasets. It also has similar coverage and quality as the NOAA ACSPO VIIRS L2P SST (https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/N20-VIIRS-L2P-ACSPO-v2.80).

Get the data

viirs_n20-navo-l2p-v3.0_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="VIIRS_N20-NAVO-L2P-v3.0",
    version="3.0",
    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.