ESA Sea Surface Temperature Climate Change Initiative (ESA SST CCI): Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) level 2 pre-processed (L2P) long term product version 1.0

The ESA Sea Surface Temperature Climate Change Initiative (ESA SST CCI) dataset accurately maps the surface temperature of the global oceans over the period 1991 to 2010, using observations from many satellites. The data provides an independently quantified SST to a quality suitable for climate research.

The ESA SST CCI AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) Long Term Product consists of stable, low-bias sea surface temperature (SST) data covering the period 08/1991 - 12/2010. The L2P data product provide these SST observations in the satellite swath.

This dataset is cited in: Merchant, C. J., Embury, O., Roberts-Jones, J., Fiedler, E., Bulgin, C. E., Corlett, G. K., Good, S., McLaren, A., Rayner, N., Morak-Bozzo, S. and Donlon, C. (2014), Sea surface temperature datasets for climate applications from Phase 1 of the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative (SST CCI). Geoscience Data Journal. doi: 10.1002/gdj3.20

Date (Publication): 2014-06-26T12:09:28

Date (Creation): 2014-06-26T12:09:28

Citation identifier: https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/da85154480423eda8e8022d499abcc06

Citation identifier: NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC) / da85154480423eda8e8022d499abcc06

Citation identifier: doi / http://dx.doi.org/10.5285/782305d4-1ded-43f9-a0ed-40cb41ff0a43

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Unavailable	Merchant, Christopher J.	Unavailable	Author
Unavailable	Embury, Owen	Unavailable	Author
Unavailable	Roberts-Jones, J.	Unavailable	Author
Unavailable	Fiedler, E. K.	Unavailable	Author
Unavailable	Bulgin, C.E.	Unavailable	Author
Unavailable	Corlett, Gary K.	Unavailable	Author
Unavailable	Good, S.A.	Unavailable	Author
Unavailable	McLaren, A.	Unavailable	Author
Unavailable	Rayner, Nick A.	Unavailable	Author
Unavailable	Donlon, Craig	Unavailable	Author
NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)		neodc@rl.ac.uk	Custodian
NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)		neodc@rl.ac.uk	Distributor
NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)		neodc@rl.ac.uk	pointofContact
NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)		neodc@rl.ac.uk	Publisher

Maintenance and update frequency: Not planned

Update scope: Dataset

Keywords

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

orthoimagery

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Public data: access to these data is available to both registered and non-registered users.

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Under the following licence https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/licences/specific_licences/esacci_sst_terms_and_conditions.pdf, appropriate use of these data may fall under any use. This message is intended as guidance, always read the full licence. When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record.

Spatial representation type: Grid

Language: English

Topic category

Imagery base maps earth cover

Begin date: 1991-08-31T23:00:00

End date: 2010-12-31T00:00:00

Unique resource identifier: WGS 84

Distribution format

Name	Version
Data availability and file format The L2P Data from the series of Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensors consist of a single orbit per file on an irregular grid with grid cell spacing about 4 km. These start in September 1991. Each file contains two sets of SSTs. The first set provides a measure of the temperature of the skin of the water at the time it was observed; the second set are estimates of the temperature at 20 cm depth and at either 1030 h or 2230 h local time. Each SST has associated with it a total uncertainty estimate, and uncertainty estimates for various contributions to that total uncertainty. The data are stored in NetCDF-4 format files. Data arrays in NetCDF files are known as ‘variables’ and each variable has metadata stored with it. Please read the ESA CCI SST Product User Guide, available here before using the data. There is also a Quick Start Guide here. Access to the ESA SST CCI AVHRR L2P long term product is available through our data browser here or via ftp at /neodc/esacci_sst/data/lt/AVHRR

Name

Version

Data availability and file format

The L2P Data from the series of Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensors consist of a single orbit per file on an irregular grid with grid cell spacing about 4 km. These start in September 1991. Each file contains two sets of SSTs. The first set provides a measure of the temperature of the skin of the water at the time it was observed; the second set are estimates of the temperature at 20 cm depth and at either 1030 h or 2230 h local time. Each SST has associated with it a total uncertainty estimate, and uncertainty estimates for various contributions to that total uncertainty.

The data are stored in NetCDF-4 format files. Data arrays in NetCDF files are

known as ‘variables’ and each variable has metadata stored with it. Please read the ESA CCI SST Product User Guide, available here before using the data. There is also a Quick Start Guide here.

Access to the ESA SST CCI AVHRR L2P long term product is available through our data browser here or via ftp at /neodc/esacci_sst/data/lt/AVHRR

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)		neodc@rl.ac.uk	Distributor

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/da85154480423eda8e8022d499abcc06	CEDA Data Catalogue Page

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://data.ceda.ac.uk/neodc/esacci/sst/data/lt/AVHRR	DOWNLOAD

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00254.1	The ESA Climate Change Initiative: satellite data records for essential climate variables; R. Hollmann, C.J. Merchant, R. Saunders, C. Downy, M.Buchwitz, A. Cazenave, E. Chuvieco, P. Defourny, G. de Leeuw,R. Forsberg, T.Holzer-Popp, F. Paul, S. Sandven, S. Sathyendranath, M. van Roozendael, W.Wagner; Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00254.1

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/gdj3.20/full	Merchant, C. J., Embury, O., Roberts-Jones, J., Fiedler, E., Bulgin, C. E., Corlett, G. K., Good, S., McLaren, A., Rayner, N., Morak-Bozzo, S. and Donlon, C. (2014), Sea surface temperature datasets for climate applications from Phase 1 of the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative (SST CCI). Geoscience Data Journal. doi: 10.1002/gdj3.20

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/	Creative Commons License by attribution

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://climate.esa.int/projects/sea-surface-temperature/	ESA CCI Sea Surface Temperature project website

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://www.esa-sst-cci.org/sites/default/files/Documents/public/SST_CCI-CRDP-UKMO-001_Issue-1-Signed-accepted.pdf	Climate Research Data Package

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://www.esa-sst-cci.org/PUG/documents.htm	ESA CCI SST documentation

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://zenodo.org/record/7356277/files/SST_CCI-QuickStartGuide-Issue-1.pdf	Quick Start Guide to ESA SST CCI Products

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://www.esa-sst-cci.org/sites/default/files/Documents/public/SST_CCI-PUG-UKMO-001_Issue-3-signed-accepted.pdf	Product User Guide

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://data.ceda.ac.uk/neodc/esacci/sst/metadata/sample_images/AVHRR_L2.png	Sample Image

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Conformance result

Title: Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Statement: Data were processed by the ESA CCI SST project team and supplied to NEODC by the UK Met Office.

Metadata

File identifier: da85154480423eda8e8022d499abcc06 XML

Metadata language: English

Character set: UTF8

Parent identifier: Collection of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Data of the Global Oceans as part of the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI)
1dc189bbf94209b48ed446c0e9a078af

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Date stamp: 2025-12-10T03:04:59

Metadata standard name: UK GEMINI

Metadata standard version: 2.3

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)		neodc@rl.ac.uk	Point of contact

Overviews

Spatial extent

Provided by

Access to the catalogue

Read here the full details and access to the data.

Simple

Conformance result

Metadata

Overviews

Spatial extent

Keywords

Provided by

Share on social sites