This v2.1 SST_cci Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Level 2 Preprocessed (L2P) Climate Data Record (CDR) consists of stable, low-bias sea surface temperature (SST) data from the AVHRR series of satellite instruments. It covers the period between 08/1981 and 12/2016. This L2P product provides these SST data on the original satellite swath with a single orbit of data per file.The dataset has been produced as part of the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative Sea Surface Temperature project(ESA SST_cci). The data products from SST_cci accurately map the surface temperature of the global oceans over the period 1981 to 2016 using observations from many satellites. The data provide independently quantified SSTs to a quality suitable for climate research.This CDR Version 2.1 product supercedes the CDR Version 2.0 product. Data are made freely and openly available under a Creative Commons License by Attribution (CC By 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .When citing this dataset please also cite the associated data paper: Merchant, C.J., Embury, O., Bulgin, C.E., Block T., Corlett, G.K., Fiedler, E., Good, S.A., Mittaz, J., Rayner, N.A., Berry, D., Eastwood, S., Taylor, M., Tsushima, Y., Waterfall, A., Wilson, R., Donlon, C. Satellite-based time-series of sea-surface temperature since 1981 for climate applications, Scientific Data 6:223 (2019). http://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0236-x