Seasonal Changes in Microwave Sea Surface Temperature in the Labrador Sea and Its Relationship to Seasonal Changes in Ocean Surface Currents

Abstract

As one of the few places in the ocean where winter cooling/mixing creates conditions where water from the surface can penetrate into the deep ocean the Labrador Sea is an area of interest to people studying climate change in the ocean. Persistent cloud cover over this area makes it impossible to use infrared satellite imagery to relate space/time changes in sea surface temperature (SST) to changes in surface currents and air-sea interaction. Using passive microwave SSTs from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) we plot space/time changes in SST in the Labrador Sea and relate these changes to both simultaneous in situ measurements of temperature and numerical model SSTs. A direct comparison between the microwave SSTs, infrared SSTs and in situ temperatures measured from profiling floats reveals that the microwave SSTs are a good representation of space/time changes in infrared SST and in ocean temperatures down to 10 m below the sea surface. Comparisons between the microwave SSTs and time series of temperatures at depths below 50 m reveal that winter/spring surface cooling makes the SST similar to temperatures at these deeper depths in the convection region of the central Labrador Sea.