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Full catalog/VIIRS_NPP-STAR-L2P-v2.80
VIIRS_NPP-STAR-L2P-v2.80·v2.80·dataset

How warm the sea surface is (VIIRS, Suomi-NPP)

GHRSST Level 2P NOAA STAR SST v2.80 from VIIRS on S-NPP Satellite
ocean NASA POCLOUD Level 2P netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. How warm the very top layer of the sea surface is, mapped at the sensor's full detail along each satellise pass, with quality flags marking clear-sky, cloudy, land, ice, and sun-glint pixels.

How it's made. Derived from infrared 'brightness temperature' readings (how warm a surface looks to the sensor) taken by the VIIRS instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite, processed with NOAA's clear-sky ocean system into short time-slice files.

How & where you'd use it. Feeds weather and ocean forecasting, marine monitoring, and climate records, with built-in error estimates and quality checks against real buoy and ship measurements.

What's measured

OCEANS › OCEAN TEMPERATURE › SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE › SEA SURFACE SKIN TEMPERATURE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2012-02-01 → ongoing
  • Measured bySuomi-NPP (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 Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), starting with S-NPP launched on 28 October 2011, is the new generation of the US Polar Operational Environmental Satellites (POES). NOAA is responsible for all JPSS products, including SST from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The L2P SST product is derived at the native sensor resolution (~0.75 km at nadir, ~1.5 km at swath edge) using NOAA's Advanced Clear-Sky Processor for Ocean (ACSPO) system, and reported in 10-minute granules in netCDF4 format, compliant with the Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) Data Specification version 2 (GDS2). SSTs are derived from Brightness Temperatures (BTs) using the Non-Linear SST (NLSST) algorithms (Petrenko et al., 2014). An ACSPO clear-sky mask (ACSM) is provided in each pixel as part of variable l2p_flags, which also includes day/night, land, ice, twilight, and glint flags (Petrenko et al., 2010). Only ACSM confidently clear pixels are recommended (equivalent to GDS2 quality level=5). Per GDS2 specifications, two additional Sensor-Specific Error Statistics layers (SSES bias and standard deviation) are reported in each pixel with QL=5. The ACSPO VIIRS L2P product is monitored and validated against quality controlled in situ data provided by NOAA in situ SST Quality Monitor system (iQuam) using another NOAA system, SST Quality Monitor (SQUAM). A reduced size (0.5GB/day), equal-angle gridded (0.02-deg resolution), ACSPO L3U product is also available at https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/VIIRS_NPP-STAR-L3U-v2.80, where gridded L2P SSTs with QL=5 only are reported. The v2.80 is an updated version from the v2.61 with several algorithm improvements including two added thermal front layers, reduced L2P SST data size, mitigated warm biases in the high latitudes, and improved clear-sky mask.

Get the data

viirs_npp-star-l2p-v2.80_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="VIIRS_NPP-STAR-L2P-v2.80",
    version="2.80",
    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.