Topic: Legacy Products Retirement of AVHRR and VIIRS Coast Watch SST Swaths

Date/Time Issued: January 21, 2026 1921 UTC

Product(s) or Data Impacted: Legacy AVHRR and VIIRS Coast Watch SST Swaths

Date/Time of Initial Impact: March 17, 2026 

Date/Time of Expected End: Permanent

Details/Specifics of Change: 

ESPC plans to terminate the legacy satellite capabilities for the following:

Please note:

There is no direct replacement for the legacy AVHRR and VIIRS Coast Watch SST Swath Imagery, however, the following products are available via the OSPO Product Distribution and Access (PDA) system:

• L2 ACSPO SSTs. NOAA Enterprise VIIRS Advanced Clear-Sky Processor for Oceans (ACSPO) Sea Surface Temperature (SST) products are produced operationally in the NESDIS Common Cloud Framework (NCCF) system.

• L3: ACSPO SSTs. Operational NOAA Advanced Clear-Sky Processor for Ocean (ACSPO) Level-3 Super-collated (L3S) SSTs for Low Earth Orbit satellites are 0.02° resolution SSTs processed and distributed through NOAA operations. The LEO L3S SST products are a result of combining or collating Level-3 uncollated data from VIIRS and AVHRR sensors. (Produced operationally in the NESDIS Common Cloud Framework (NCCF) system.)

• L4: BSST. The Geo-Polar Blended Sea Surface Temperature (GPB) Analysis is a level-4 high resolution ~5 km (0.05°) global SST product suite that includes three daily files: night-only SST, day-night combined SST, and diurnally corrected day-night combined SST files

Contact Information for Further Information and Feedback: 

SPSD User Services (spsd.userservices@noaa.gov) 

Web Site(s) for applicable information:

Please reference the following link for all legacy retirements: https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/retirements.html