AVHRR Pathfinder Version 5.2 Level 3 Collated (L3C) Global 4km Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Climate Data Record (CDR) for 1981-2010

The AVHRR Pathfinder Version 5.2 Sea Surface Temperature data set (PFV52) is a collection of global, twice-daily 4km sea surface temperature data produced in a partnership by the NOAA National Oceanographic Data Center and the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. PFV52 was computed from data from the AVHRR instruments on board NOAA's polar orbiting satellite series using an entirely modernized system based on SeaDAS (NASA SeaWiFS Data Analysis System). This system incorporates several key changes from Versions 5.0 and 5.1 of Pathfinder, including the use of an entirely new land mask, a modified grid, and the inclusion of sea ice, wind speed, and aerosol ancillary data to support the use of the SST data. Importantly, PFV52 data are provided in netCDF-4 (classic model, with internal compression and chunking) and are nearly 100% compliant with the GHRSST (Group for High-Resolution Sea Surface Temperature) Data Specification Version 2.0 for L3C products. These data deviate from that standard only in that sses_bias, sses_standard_deviation, and sst_dtime variables are empty. PFV52 data were collected through the operational periods of the NOAA-7 through NOAA-18 Polar Operational Environmental Satellites (POES), and are available for 1981 through 2010. Data for all years are available as separate NODC accessions.