Retrieval of Sea Surface Skin Temperature from the High Resolution Picture Transmission Data of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Series Satellites

Abstract

The High Resolution Picture Transmission (HRPT) data of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) series meteorological satellites had been received by the SeaSpace ground station located at the Ocean University of China (OUC). Based on the atmospheric radiative transfer model, we obtained the NOAA-15/16/17/18/19 Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sea surface skin temperature (SSTskin) data using the Bayesian cloud detection method and the optimal estimation (OE) sea surface temperature (SST) retrieval algorithm. Compared with the NOAA/AVHRR multi-channel SST data, the AVHRR SSTskin data have higher data accuracy. We also compared the AVHRR SSTskin with the buoy SST with spatial and temporal windows of 0.01° and 30 min. The daytime biases ranged from −0.32 °C (NOAA-16) to 0.08 °C (NOAA-17) with standard deviations (SDs) ranging from 0.36 °C (NOAA-18/ NOAA-19) to 0.60 °C (NOAA-16), and the nighttime biases ranged from −0.26 °C (NOAA-16) to −0.02 °C (NOAA-17) with SDs ranging from 0.33 °C (NOAA-19) to 0.60 °C (NOAA-16). The accuracy of all five satellite data during daytime and nighttime was significantly improved. These results show that the AVHRR SSTskin of NOAA series satellites is good and consistent in different periods, and the SSTskin data products with high spatial resolution and accuracy can be used for mesoscale and submesoscale marine applications.