Assessment of the initial sea surface temperature product of the scanning microwave radiometer aboard on HY-2 satellite

Abstract

HY-2 satellite is the first satellite for dynamic environmental parameters measurement of China, which was launched on 16th August 2011. A scanning microwave radiometer (RM) is carried for sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface wind speed, columnar water vapor and columnar cloud liquid water detection. In this paper, the initial SST product of RM was validated with in-situ data of National Data of Buoy Center (NDBC) mooring and Argo buoy. The validation results indicate the accuracy of RMSST is better than 1.7°C. The comparison of RM SST and WindSat SST shows the former is warmer than the latter at high sea surface wind speed and the difference between these SSTs is depend on the sea surface wind speed. Then, the relationship between the errors of RM SST and sea surface wind speed was analyzed using NDBC mooring measurements. Based on the results of assessment and errors analysis, the suggestions of taking account of the affection of sea surface wind speed and using sea surface wind speed and direction derived from the microwave scatteromter aboard on HY-2 for SST product calibration were given for retrieval algorithm improvement.