GHRSST Level 3U NOAA STAR SST v2.80 from VIIRS on S-NPP Satellite (GDS version 2)

The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), starting with S-NPP launched on 28 October 2011, is the new generation of the US Polar Operational Environmental Satellites (POES). The ACSPO SNPP/VIIRS L3U (Level 3 Uncollated) product is a gridded version of the ACSPO NPP/VIIRS L2P product. The L3U output files are 10-minute granules in netCDF4 format, compliant with the Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) Data Specification version 2 (GDS2). There are 144 granules per 24hr interval, with a total data volume of 0.5GB/day. Fill values are reported at all invalid pixels, including pixels with >5 km inland. For each valid water pixel (defined as ocean, sea, lake or river, and up to 5 km inland), the following layers are reported: SSTs, a subset of l2p_flags (including day/night, land, ice, twilight, and glint flags), wind speed, and ACSPO SST minus reference (Canadian Met Centre 0.1deg L4 SST). Only L2P SSTs with QL=5 were gridded, so all valid SSTs are recommended for the users. Per GDS2 specifications, two additional Sensor-Specific Error Statistics layers (SSES bias and standard deviation) are reported in each pixel with valid SST. The ACSPO VIIRS L3U product is monitored and validated against iQuam in situ data in SQUAM. The v2.80 is an updated version from the v2.61 with several L2P algorithm improvements including two added thermal front layers, mitigated warm biases in the high latitudes, and improved clear-sky mask.