Skin Sea Surface Temperatures

SSTs derived from the M-AERI on the Celebrity Equinox. April 4 - 3 October, 2016, 
by Peter Minnett

Accurate satellite measurements of sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) are required for many applications, including weather forecasting, climate research and fundamental research into how the ocean and atmosphere interact. The satellite SSTs are derived from self-calibrating radiometers, and the derivation of SST from the satellite radiometers involves corrections for the effects of the atmosphere, and the size of the corrections is much greater than the required accuracy of the SSTs, and the success of the corrections, and the residual uncertainties in the SSTs is determined by comparisons with measurements from radiometers on ships, the majority of these measurements come from RCCL ships. Without these comparisons, improvements in the accuracies of the derives SSTs would not be possible.

MODIS Skin SST vs M-AERI and ISAR Skin SST.    Temperature differences in K

Satellite and Algorithm

Mean

Median

Standard Deviation

Robust St. Deviation

Number

Terra SST Day

0.082

0.080

0.567

0.409

1025

Terra SST Night

0.048

0.034

0.467

0.337

2454

Terra SST4 Night

0.016

0.023

0.339

0.244

2467

Aqua SST Day

0.105

0.107

0.666

0.480

910

Aqua SST Night

0.020

0.027

0.489

0.353

1752

Aqua SST4 Night

-0.010

0.016

0.396

0.285

1858

Ship-board skin SSTs are from two radiometers, M-AERI and ISAR.
Majority are from M-AERI, and majority of M-AERI measurements are from RCCL ships.

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