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Arctic ocean — sea surface temperature, sea ice, ocean color from PolarWatch

Find satellite-derived polar ocean products from NOAA PolarWatch and combine with in-situ observations.

What this teaches

  • The POLARWATCH collection's product family (SST, sea ice, ocean color, winds, salinity)
  • Picking between daily / weekly / monthly composites
  • Combining satellite polar products with Argo and IOOS-AOOS data for in-situ context

Sources used: POLARWATCH, GADR, AOOS

Prompt

Show me satellite ocean products covering the Alaska / Bering Sea
region. I want sea surface temperature, sea ice coverage, and any
related polar oceanographic data.

Transcript

1. Scope to PolarWatch

search_datasets(
  collections = "POLARWATCH",
  q = "sea ice",
  limit = 5
)

147 matching products (free-text sea ice is OR-tokenised so it matches "sea" and "ice" hits broadly). Top of the list — the VIIRS SST series for the Alaska region:

ID Title Resolution
viirs_noaa20_ak_750m_daily SST, VIIRS NOAA-20, Alaska, 750 m, Science Quality Daily 750 m
viirs_noaa20_ak_750m_weekly Same product, weekly composite 750 m
viirs_noaa20_ak_750m_monthly Same product, monthly composite 750 m

Provider: NOAA/NESDIS/STAR/CoastWatch/PolarWatch. Bbox: -179.99, 50.00 → -125.01, 74.99. ERDDAP: https://polarwatch.noaa.gov/erddap.

PolarWatch also hosts sea-ice concentration / extent products (e.g., DMSP SSMIS, AMSR-2 derived) — narrow with q = "sea ice concentration".

2. Combine with in-situ Argo

search_datasets(
  collections = "GADR",
  bbox = "-180,55,-150,72",
  limit = 5
)

Returns Argo profiling floats deployed in the Bering Sea / Gulf of Alaska that complement the satellite SST grid with vertical profile data.

3. AOOS for coastal moorings

search_datasets(
  collections = "AOOS",
  bbox = "-180,55,-130,72",
  limit = 5
)

Buoys, gliders, and HF radar from the Alaska Ocean Observing System — the regional IOOS RA for Alaska.

Result the agent gave

"PolarWatch holds 147 items matching the Alaska / Bering Sea bbox + 'sea ice OR sea surface temperature' query. The top of the list is the VIIRS NOAA-20 ACSPO SST series for the Alaska region, processed by NOAA NESDIS / STAR / CoastWatch / PolarWatch:

  • viirs_noaa20_ak_750m_daily — daily composite, 750 m resolution
  • viirs_noaa20_ak_750m_weekly — weekly composite
  • viirs_noaa20_ak_750m_monthly — monthly composite

Coverage bbox: -179.99°W to -125.01°W, 50.00°N to 74.99°N (Alaska + Bering + Gulf of Alaska + Arctic Coast). The data is derived via ACSPO (Advanced Clear-Sky Processor for Oceans). ERDDAP: https://polarwatch.noaa.gov/erddap.

For sea-ice concentration / extent products specifically (e.g., DMSP SSMIS, AMSR-2 derived), narrow with q='sea ice concentration' — the broader query I ran also returns those, but they're below the SST hits in the result list.

To complement the satellite SST with in-situ data, search GADR (global Argo) and AOOS (Alaska Ocean Observing System) with the same bbox. Note: the GADR collection indexes floats at the float-level with lifetime bbox, so use temperature column_stats_summary as a sanity check that the floats are actually subarctic — see 05-argo-float-profiles/ for that gotcha."

Variations

  • Antarctic: bbox -180,-90,180,-60 for Southern Ocean PolarWatch products.
  • Sea ice trend: aggregate by datetime_frequency_interval = "month" over a 5–10 year window.
  • Specific sensor: filter q = "AMSR-2" or q = "SSMIS" for passive microwave sea-ice products only.