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Catalog of OB.DAAC variables under familiar names

Source: R/obdaac.R
obdaac_variables.Rd

Maps the names this package uses onto the product suite and the variable inside it that supply them.

Usage

obdaac_variables()

Value

a named list, one entry per variable, each with suite, variable, label, units and description

Which SST this is

MODIS and VIIRS publish more than one sea surface temperature, and they are different measurements rather than different names for one:

  • SST is the 11 um retrieval from the daytime pass, which sees the skin of the ocean including whatever the sun has warmed that afternoon.

  • SST_NIGHT is the same 11 um retrieval from the night pass, with that diurnal warming absent. It is the one to use where a comparison across days or sensors has to be like for like.

Neither is the foundation temperature that MUR in erddap_datasets() analyses, and none of the three is the topmost model level that a reanalysis calls SST. All four arrive in a column called SST unless you ask for the night one, and source_of() is what tells them apart.

Chlorophyll is not gap-free

These are single-sensor Level-3 composites, so a daily field is mostly cloud outside the tropics and a CHL column from one is mostly NA. That is the honest state of the measurement rather than a fault, and there are three ways through it: composite in time by asking for frequency = "8day" or "monthly", interpolate with fill_satellite_gaps(), which records what it filled, or use a gap-free product — the daily Copernicus CHL and the VIIRSCHL entry in erddap_datasets() are both already interpolated.

See also

accessOBDAAC(), obdaac_dictionary() for a printable table

Examples

names(obdaac_variables())
#> [1] "CHL"       "KD490"     "PAR"       "POC"       "PIC"       "SST"      
#> [7] "SST_NIGHT" "NFLH"     
obdaac_variables()$CHL$suite
#> [1] "CHL"