Abstract

This paper describes a global, daily sea surface temperature (SST) analysis based on satellite microwave and infrared measurements. The SST analysis includes a diurnal correction method to estimate foundation SST (SST free from diurnal variability) using satellite sea surface wind and solar radiation data, frequency splitting to reproduce intra-seasonal variability and a quality control procedure repeated twice to avoid operation errors. An optimal interpolation method designed for foundation SST is applied to blend the microwave and infrared satellite measurements. Although in situ SST measurements are not used for bias correction adjustments in the analysis, the output product, with a spatial grid size of 0.1°, has an accuracy of 0.48 ∘ C and 0.46 ∘ C compared to the in situ foundation SST measurements derived by drifting buoys and Argo floats, respectively. The same quality against the two types of in situ foundation SST (drifters and Argo) suggests that the two definitions of foundation SST proposed by past studies can provide same-quality information about the sea surface state underlying the diurnal thermocline.

Highlights

  • The sea surface is the interface between the atmosphere and ocean

  • This paper describes the method of blending satellite sea surface temperature (SST) measurements through microwave and infrared ranges at various observation times with the gridded daily-minimum SST dataset developed by Tohoku University

  • As an international cooperation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) provided an AMSR-E for the Aqua Sun-synchronous satellite, which was launched on 4 May 2002

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Summary

Introduction

The sea surface is the interface between the atmosphere and ocean. The temperature at this boundary, known as sea surface temperature (SST), is one of the important parameters in atmospheric and oceanographic studies and social applications. Global SST observation by microwave radiometers with low-frequency channels (6–10 GHz) is an epoch-making invention for producing such gridded SST datasets with high spatial and temporal resolutions This method can provide SST measurements under almost-all-weather conditions except for strong rainfall. The Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) [6] introduced an additional definition of foundation SST: the temperature at the first time of the day when the heat gain from absorption of solar radiation exceeds the heat loss at the sea surface This definition, which is based on the fact that diurnal thermoclines disappear at local sunrise, is referred to in the present paper as “SSTfnd Definition (2)”. This paper describes the method of blending satellite SST measurements through microwave and infrared ranges at various observation times with the gridded daily-minimum SST dataset developed by Tohoku University.

Satellite SST Data
AMSR-E on Aqua and AMSR2 on GCOM-W1
WindSat on Coriolis
MODIS Sensors on Aqua and Terra
Sea Surface Wind and Solar Radiation Data for Diurnal Correction
Sea Ice Data
In Situ Data for Validation
Data Integration and Quality Control
Diurnal Correction
Frequency Splitting and Quality Control of SST
Optimal Interpolation
Flag Information
Validation
Findings
Discussion
Conclusions
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