Satellite Data Product and Data Dissemination Updates for the SPoRT Sea Surface Temperature Composite Product

Accurate high-resolution  specification  of  sea  surface  temperature  (SST)  is  important  for  regional weather  forecasting  studies  and  coastal  ocean  applications.    Recent studies  have  shown  that  the  use  of  coarse  resolution  SST  products  such  as  from  the  real-time  global  (RTG)  SST  analysis  or  other  coarse  resolution once-a-day products do not properly portray the diurnal variability of fluxes of heat and moisture from  the  ocean  that  drive  the  formation  of  low  level  clouds  and  precipitation  over  the  ocean.  High resolution regional coverage of accurate SST variability is also important for hurricane and tropical storm intensity forecasts and verification of ocean circulation models.  In previous work, weather model forecasts were improved using high-resolution SST data produced with a polar orbiting data compositing technique, which provided  spatially  continuous,  accurate,  high-resolution  SST  fields  using  data  from  the  Moderate-resolution  Imaging  Spectrometer  (MODIS)  on  NASA’s  Terra  and  Aqua  satellites.  Real-time generation of an enhanced SST product at NASA’s Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center began in the early 2010s. This product is distributed to partners within the National Weather Service and the private sector for modeling and situational awareness. This enhanced product has led to reduced product latency and better error weighting schemes.  With the launch of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), this additional high-resolution imager data set is now available for real-time ingest into the SPoRT SST Composite product.  The inclusion of VIIRS will provide even further reduced latency and an ability for the SPoRT SST product to extend beyond the lifetime of MODIS.  This presentation will outline recent updates to the SPoRT SST product, demonstrate examples of the new product and its uses, and describe a new data delivery and visualization capability using web map services.