Restrictions | Details | Caveats | File Naming | Citation | References | Original Source | Contact
NOAA Optimum Interpolation (OI) Sea Surface Temperature (SST) V2
Brief Description:
Temporal Coverage:
Spatial Coverage:
|
![]() |
Levels:
- Sea Surface
Update Schedule:
- Weekly
- Monthly
Download/Plot Data: (FTP Access)
Variable | Statistic | Level | Download File | Create Plot/Subset |
---|---|---|---|---|
Sea Surface Temperature | Mean | Surface | sst.wkmean.1981-1989.nc sst.wkmean.1990-present.nc |
![]() |
Ice Concentration | Mean | Surface | icec.wkmean.1981-1989.nc icec.wkmean.1990-present.nc |
![]() |
Normalized Error Variance | Mean | Surface | err.wkmean.1981-1989.nc err.wkmean.1990-present.nc |
![]() |
Sea Surface Temperature | Mean | Surface | sst.mnmean.nc | ![]() |
Ice Concentration | Mean | Surface | icec.mnmean.nc | ![]() |
Sea Surface Temperature | Long Term Mean | Surface | sst.ltm.1961-1990.nc sst.ltm.1971-2000.nc |
![]() |
Land Sea Mask | Mask | Surface | lsmask.nc | ![]() |
Usage Restrictions:
- None
Detailed Description:
-
The Physical Sciences Laboratory has collected and made available in (COARDS and CF-1.0 compliant) netCDF files, the weekly, monthly NOAA OI SST V2 data and monthly long-term mean from NCEP (Y. Xue) based on the V2 data.
- Weekly Data
-
The optimum interpolation (OI) sea surface temperature (SST) analysis
is produced weekly on a one-degree grid. The analysis uses in situ and
satellite SST's plus SST's simulated by sea-ice cover. Before the
analysis is computed, the satellite data is adjusted for biases using
the method of Reynolds (1988) and Reynolds and Marsico (1993).
- The dates used in the netCDF files are the dates of the beginning of the 7-day average period. For the more recent period, 1990-present, the weeks are defined to be centered on Wednesday. During the period 1981-1989, the weeks are centered on Sunday.
- The latitude/longitude values in the netCDF coordinate variables are the centers of the grid cells.
- The ice field shows the weekly median ice concentration values input to the SST analysis. Ice concentration is stored as the percentage of area covered. For the ice fields, the land and coast have been set to the netCDF missing value. Note, the ice land mask is a function of the ice analysis and may change periodically.
- The OI analysis is done over all ocean areas and the Great Lakes. There is no analysis over land. The land values are filled by a Cressman interpolation to produce a complete grid for possible interpolation to other grids. The ocean and land areas are defined by a land sea mask (the lsmask.nc file). Land values for sst do not necessarily coincide with land values from ice analysis.
- The dates used in the netCDF files are the dates of the beginning of the 7-day average period. For the more recent period, 1990-present, the weeks are defined to be centered on Wednesday. During the period 1981-1989, the weeks are centered on Sunday.
- Monthly Data
-
The NOAA OI.v2 SST monthly fields are derived by a linear interpolation of
the weekly optimum interpolation (OI) version 2 fields to daily fields then
averaging the daily values over a month. The monthly fields are in the
same format and spatial resolution as the weekly fields.
- The ice field shows the approximate monthly average of the ice concentration values input to the SST analysis. Ice concentration is stored as the percentage of area covered. For the ice fields, the land and coast grid cells have been set to the netCDF missing value.
- Monthly Long-term mean Data
- A climatology based on these fields was derived by Yan Xue of the NCEP Climate Prediction Center following the technique of Reynolds and Smith (1995) and Smith and Reynolds (1998). The climatologies are available here in the sst.ltm.*.nc files and include 1961-1990 and 1971-2000. See the references for details on how the climatologies were calculated.
Caveats:
- The current weekly means are generally one week behind the current date.
Related File Naming & Structure Information:
File Names:
- var.stat.time.nc (In directory: /Datasets/noaa.oisst.v2/)
OpenDap File Names:
- /thredds/dodsC/Datasets/noaa.oisst.v2/var.stat.time.nc
Dataset Format and Size:
- PSL standard NetCDF 55 Mbyte file for each weekly 1981-1989 file (packed).
- PSL standard NetCDF >110 Mbyte file for each weekly 1990-present file (packed).
- PSL standard NetCDF >38 Mbyte file for each monthly file (packed).
- PSL standard NetCDF 2 Mbyte file for each LTM file (packed).
- PSL standard NetCDF 133 Kbyte file for each mask file.
Missing Data:
- Missing data is flagged with a value of 32767s.
- Land and coast set to missing for ice fields.
- SST land areas can be masked using the lsmask.nc file.
Citation:
- Please note: If you acquire NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data products from PSL, we ask that you acknowledge us in your use of the data. This may be done by including text such as NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSL, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their Web site at / in any documents or publications using these data. We would also appreciate receiving a copy of the relevant publications. This will help PSL to justify keeping the NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data set freely available online in the future. Thank you!
References:
Original Source:
-
Climate Modeling Branch W/NP24
NCEP/NWS/NOAA
5200 Auth Road, Room 807
Camp Springs, MD 20746 USA
Contact:
-
Physical Sciences Laboratory: Data Management
NOAA/ESRL/PSL
325 Broadway
Boulder, CO 80305-3328
psl.data@noaa.gov
- Climate Datasets: By Category
- All
- Sub-daily
- Daily
- Monthly
- Surface
- Temperature
- SST
- Precipitation
- Land
- Ocean
- Multi-level
- Radiation
- Arctic
- Reanalysis
- Climate Indices
- Search Datasets
- 20th Century Reanalysis
- Popular Datasets
- ICOADS
- NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis
- N. American Regional Reanalysis
- Plotting & Analysis
- Basic Plots
- Analysis Tools
- Access
- FTP Access
- OPeNDAP Access
- Software Resources
- Complete Data Resources
- About NetCDF
- Reading Data in NetCDF Format