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GHRSST Level 2P Global Skin Sea Surface Temperature from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on the MetOp-A satellite produced by EUMETSAT

Entry ID: EUR-L2P-AVHRR_METOP_A

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Summary

Abstract: A global 1 km 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 Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on the European Meteorological Operational-A (MetOp-A; launched 19 Oct 2006) ) satellite. The MetOp satellite program is a European undertaking providing weather ... data services for monitoring climate and improving weather forecasts. It was jointly established by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) with a contribution by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of an AVHRR sensor identical to those flying on the family of Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES). AVHRR instruments measure the radiance of the Earth in 5 (or 6) relatively wide spectral bands. The first two are centered around the red (0.6 micrometer) and near-infrared (0.9 micrometer) regions, the third one is located around 3.5 micrometer, and the last two sample the emitted thermal radiation, around 11 and 12 micrometers, respectively. The legacy 5 band instrument is known as AVHRR/2 while the more recent version, the AVHRR/3 (first carried on the NOAA-15 platform), acquires data in a 6th channel located at 1.6 micrometer. Typically the 11 and 12 micron channels are used to derive SST sometimes in combination with the 3.5 micron channel. The MetOp-A platform is sun synchronous generally viewing the same earth location twice a day (latitude dependent) due to the relatively large AVHRR swath of approximately 2400 km. The highest ground resolution that can be obtained from the current AVHRR instruments is 1.1 km at nadir. The production of the MetOp-A L2P SST data is done by the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF) at Meteo-France/Centre de Meteorologie Spatiale (CMS) in France. In the processing chain, global AVHRR level 1b data are acquired at CMS through the EUMETSAT/EUMETCAST system. A cloud mask is applied and SST is retrieved from the AVHRR infrared (IR) channels by using a multispectral technique. The MetOp-A SST L2P data consist of global coverage at 1 km resolution separated into three minute observation granules, and are compliant with the Group for High Resolution SST (GHRSST) Data Specification (GDS) version 1.7.

Related URL

Link: GET DATA > THREDDS DIRECTORY

Description: Data may be directly downloaded from the NODC via the THREDDS (Thematic Real-time Environmental Distributed Data Services) server at the URL listed in this metadata record. For more information see the NODC GHRSST project web site: URL: http://ghrsst.nodc.noaa.gov/