ESA Sea Surface Temperature Climate Change Initiative (SST_cci): Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Level 2 Pre-processed (L2P) product, version 3.0

This dataset provides global sea surface temperatures (SST) from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR), presented on the native geometry of observation, and spanning 1980 to 2021.

The SST CCI AVHRR product contains two different SST estimates. The first is the skin temperature of the water at the time it was observed. The second is an estimate of the temperature at 20 cm depth at either 1030h or 2230h local time, which closely approximates the daily mean SST. Each SST value has an associated total uncertainty estimate, and uncertainty estimates for various contributions to that total.

The dataset has been produced as part of the version 3 Climate Data Record (CDR) produced by the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative Sea Surface Temperature project (ESA SST_cci). The CDR accurately maps the surface temperature of the global oceans over the period 1980 to 2021 using observations from many satellites, with a high degree of independence from in situ measurements. The data provide independently quantified SSTs to a quality suitable for climate research.

This CDR Version 3.0 product supersedes the CDR v2.1 product. Compared to the previous version the major changes are:

* Longer time series: 1980 to 2021 (previous CDR was Sept 1981 to 2016)

* Improved retrieval to reduce systematic biases using bias-aware optimal methods (for single view sensors)

* Improved retrieval with respect to desert-dust aerosols

* Addition of early AVHRR/1 data in 1980s, and improved AVHRR processing to reduce data gaps in 1980s

* Use of full-resolution MetOp AVHRR data (previously used ‘global area coverage’ Level 1 data)

Data are made freely and openly available under a Creative Commons License by Attribution (CC By 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

When citing this dataset please also cite the associated data paper:

Embury, O., Merchant, C.J., Good, S.A., Rayner, N.A., Høyer, J.L., Atkinson, C., Block, T., Alerskans, E., Pearson, K.J., Worsfold, M., McCarroll, N., Donlon, C. Satellite-based time-series of sea-surface temperature since 1980 for climate applications. Scientific Data 11, 326 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03147-w