Chapter 10 - Interannual and intraannual comparative study of sea surface temperature distribution over the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea within the time frame of 2003–18

Abstract

Ocean covers most of the earth’s surface (approximately 71%). Earth’s deep-sea life, coastal life, atmosphere, and human society are dependent on the ocean. Several parameters are used to measure different attributes of the ocean to understand how the ocean communicates with the earth’s environment. Measurements of SST benefits a wide variety of operational applications, including weather monitoring or forecasting, military defense operations, validation of atmospheric models, sea turtle tracking, evaluation of coral bleaching, tourism, and commercial fisheries management. It also delivers fundamental information on the global climate system. So, monitoring the SST distribution over different ocean regions of the earth in a monthly, seasonal, and yearly manner using remote sensing data demands of utmost importance. Our proposed study aims to provide a comparative study of SST derived from MODIS and SSTA from NOAA/NCEP over the three different ocean regions such as the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea during the time period 2003–18. We have also discussed the El Niño (EN) and La Niña (LN) phases during the study period and the way they contribute to the SSTA.