ESA SST CCI CDR v3¶

ESA Sea Surface Temperature Climate Change Initiative (SST_cci) Climate Data Record version 3.0 + Interim Climate Data Record (distributed by CEDA; on the C3S Climate Data Store as "Global sea surface temperature derived from satellite observations")

Available

At a glance¶

Note on period: The L4 analysis CDR covers 1980-01-01 to 2021-12-31; data from 2022 onward are ICDR. The C3S CDS catalogue lists a temporal extent of 1979-07-13 (start of the L3C daily data) to 2026-09-23 (checked 2026-10-12); end dates per level and sensor were not checked. The ESA data page gives the ICDR as about 2 weeks behind present, the CEDA record as about one month behind. January 1980 to September 1981 rest on a single AVHRR (NOAA-06), so coverage is sparse.

Overview¶

A satellite-only sea surface temperature climate data record from the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI), built by reprocessing the AVHRR, ATSR and SLSTR infrared sensor series and the AMSR microwave sensors with consistent algorithms. No ship or buoy data are used, so in situ observations provide an independent validation, and every value comes with an uncertainty estimate. Products include skin SST and SST adjusted to 20 cm depth and the daily mean; the most widely used is the daily, gap-free 0.05° Level 4 analysis from 1980. Version 3.0 (Embury et al. 2024) is the 1980–2021 CDR, extended daily from 2022 by an ICDR made the same way.

What changes with the successor¶

SST CCI CDR v2.1 → SST CCI CDR v3.0¶

Transition: 2024-04

CDR v3.0 brings a longer time series (1980–2021), retrieval improvements that reduce systematic biases, better handling of desert-dust aerosols, dual-view SLSTR from 2016, early AVHRR/1 data and full-resolution MetOp AVHRR. It replaced v2.1 at CEDA (2024-04), on the C3S CDS (2025-11-28) and on Copernicus Marine (2026-03).

Sources: CEDA — SST CCI L4 Analysis v3.0 · Embury et al. (2024), Scientific Data · ECMWF Forum — New version 3.0 of Global Sea Surface Temperature daily data now available on CDS (2025-11-28) · Copernicus Marine transition information — SST_GLO_SST_L4_REP_OBSERVATIONS_010_024

Available variables¶

Variable names as given in the SST CCI Product User Guide (PUG) and the Copernicus Marine metadata. Values are stored as packed integers, so make sure add_offset and scale_factor are applied when reading. Units are K.

instantaneous mean accumulated maximum minimum static — instantaneous: value at the time stamp · mean/accumulated/maximum/minimum: over the indicated interval · static: does not change with time

L4 analysis (daily, gap-free)¶

L3C single-sensor daily collation (with gaps)¶

Climatology (separate product)¶

The full variable list is in the official documentation.

How to get the data¶

• CEDA Archive — L4 Analysis v3.0 (including ICDR) — HTTPS direct download / OPeNDAP No login needed
  • Open to registered and unregistered users. Data path: https://data.ceda.ac.uk/neodc/eocis/data/global_and_regional/sea_surface_temperature/CDR_v3/Analysis/L4/v3.0.1/ L3C, L3U and L2P are under the same CDR_v3 folder, organised by sensor (AVHRR, SLSTR, etc.).
• CEDA — ESA SST CCI CDR v3.0 collection — Catalogue (sub-records per level and sensor) No login needed
• C3S Climate Data Store (satellite-sea-surface-temperature) — Web download / CDS API (cdsapi)
  • Requires an ECMWF account and acceptance of the licence. Choose version 3_0, processinglevel level_4 or level_3c, sensor_on_satellite combined_product (L4) or a sensor name, and temporal_resolution daily or monthly.
• Copernicus Marine — SST_GLO_SST_L4_REP_OBSERVATIONS_010_024 — Copernicus Marine Toolbox / web Subset
  • The dataset ESACCI-GLO-SST-L4-REP-OBS-SST (product_version 3.0.1) serves the L4 CDR v3 for 1980-01-01 to 2021-12-31 only. Do not confuse it with C3S-GLO-SST-L4-REP-OBS-SST in the same product, a separate SST and sea-ice surface temperature analysis produced by DMI.
• ESA CCI Open Data Portal — Web / OPeNDAP and other services No login needed
• surftemp.net (regridding, time series, regional extraction) — Web service
  • Regridding and regional subsetting tool recommended in the PUG.

Example code¶

Put the url (https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/api) and your API key in ~/.cdsapirc, and accept the dataset licence on the CDS website before running.

# pip install --upgrade cdsapi
import cdsapi

client = cdsapi.Client()
client.retrieve(
    "satellite-sea-surface-temperature",
    {
        "variable": "all",
        "processinglevel": "level_4",
        "sensor_on_satellite": "combined_product",
        "version": "3_0",
        "temporal_resolution": "daily",
        "year": ["2023"],
        "month": ["08"],
        "day": ["01", "02", "03"],
    },
    "sst_cci_l4_202308.zip",   # NetCDF files arrive bundled in a zip
)

Practical tips¶

• This record's SST is adjusted to 20 cm depth and the daily mean, which is not quite the same as foundation SST (OSTIA) or daily-mean bulk SST (OISST). Check depth and time-of-day definitions before comparing SST analyses.
• Because no ship or buoy data go in, comparisons with in situ observations are independent. When it disagrees with analyses that assimilate in situ data (OISST, OSTIA, etc.), consider this design difference first.
• The PUG flags January 1980–September 1981 (a single AVHRR on NOAA-06, sparse data) and October 1982–September 1983 (noisy AVHRR with calibration errors) as periods to treat with caution. Avoid them as climatology or trend start points.
• When working with L3C directly, use quality_level 4 and 5 only. Uncertainty is split into components with different correlation properties (random, correlated, systematic, etc.); propagate them separately, as the PUG describes, when averaging in space or time.
• The Copernicus Marine copy stops in 2021; use CEDA or the CDS for recent data. Do not mix older v2.1 files (CEDA neodc/esacci/sst path, CDS version 2_1) with v3.0 in one series.

Notices and change history¶

References for your paper¶

Dataset citation¶

CEDA L4 Analysis v3.0 — DOI 10.5285/4a9654136a7148e39b7feb56f8bb02d2

@misc{sstcci_l4_v3,
  author    = {Good, S. A. and Embury, O.},
  title     = {{ESA} Sea Surface Temperature Climate Change Initiative ({SST\_cci}): Level 4 Analysis product, version 3.0},
  year      = {2024},
  publisher = {NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis},
  doi       = {10.5285/4a9654136a7148e39b7feb56f8bb02d2}
}

CEDA AVHRR L3C v3.0 (example if you used L3C) — DOI 10.5285/be418645dfa542df86165a7caad24284

@misc{sstcci_avhrr_l3c_v3,
  author    = {Embury, O.},
  title     = {{ESA} Sea Surface Temperature Climate Change Initiative ({SST\_cci}): Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer ({AVHRR}) Level 3 Collated ({L3C}) product, version 3.0},
  year      = {2024},
  publisher = {NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis},
  doi       = {10.5285/be418645dfa542df86165a7caad24284}
}

C3S CDS dataset — DOI 10.24381/cds.cf608234

@misc{c3s_satellite_sst,
  author    = {{Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S)}},
  title     = {Global sea surface temperature derived from satellite observations},
  year      = {2019},
  publisher = {ECMWF, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS)},
  doi       = {10.24381/cds.cf608234},
  note      = {Accessed on DD-MMM-YYYY}
}

Copernicus Marine product (010_024) — DOI 10.48670/moi-00169

Reference papers¶

CDR v3.0 data paper (recommended by CEDA and the PUG) — DOI 10.1038/s41597-024-03147-w

@article{embury2024sstcci,
  author  = {Embury, Owen and Merchant, Christopher J. and Good, Simon A. and Rayner, Nick A. and H{\o}yer, Jacob L. and Atkinson, Chris and Block, Thomas and Alerskans, Emy and Pearson, Kevin J. and Worsfold, Mark and McCarroll, Niall and Donlon, Craig},
  title   = {Satellite-based time-series of sea-surface temperature since 1980 for climate applications},
  journal = {Scientific Data},
  volume  = {11},
  pages   = {326},
  year    = {2024},
  doi     = {10.1038/s41597-024-03147-w}
}

Previous version (v2.1) data paper — DOI 10.1038/s41597-019-0236-x

Acknowledgements¶

CEDA asks users to cite the data with the citation given in each dataset record (CC BY 4.0). The PUG asks you to name the full product, level and version used and to cite Embury et al. (2024). If you downloaded from the CDS, also give the CDS dataset DOI.

Information on the datasets used in this study was compiled with the help of the Korean Climate Data Navigator (KCDN) (Sim, 2026; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23300923).

Links¶

• ESA CCI SST project data page
• CEDA — L4 Analysis v3.0
• CEDA — Climatology product v3.0 (1991–2020)
• SST CCI Product User Guide (PUG, CDR v3)
• C3S CDS dataset page
• Embury et al. (2024), Scientific Data
• This site — GHRSST MUR 1 km SST analysis
• This site — AVHRR Pathfinder SST (no longer updated)