Global Sea Surface Temperature

This web page contains information and example plots of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) data. The raw data are obtained from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on board the NOAA polar orbiting satellites. The RSMAS Remote Sensing laboratory, geo-locates the raw data, calculates SST using a non-linear multi-channel algorithm and performs cloud detection & removal. The gappy daytime (ascending orbits) SST data is space-time interpolated using a 3 week sliding data window and an Objective Analysis algorithm (Mariano and Brown) to a resolution of 2 days on an 18km equal-area grid. To represent temperature, the data is mapped to a rainbow palette, Warm water is red, Cold water is blue. This version covers the time period of 1985 to mid-1998. A previous version covered 36km/4 day for only 5 years. (Ryan et al,1996) There may be average biases on the order of 0.5°C in some areas and during some seasons as well as the same order random error component.

Example Plots and Animations

Global Monthly Means - Slide show of the 12 monthly means.

Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas - Geoff Samuels has made a clickable map of the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas that show the monthly means of this data set as well as surface currents, wind, air temperature, precipitation and water clarity.

Gulf of Mexico -

Gulf Stream - 4km resolution OA map of July 14, 1995. The red line is the Gulf Stream Northern Edge digitized from a 2 day composite (Chin and Mariano, 1997).

ENSO - SST Anomilies in the Eastern Pacific for December 1996 and 1997.

Hurricanes - QuickTime movie (~2.8Megs) showing cooling along hurricane tracks in 1995. SST data is every 2 days, current hurricane track are red dots.

Spin - Global Sea Surface Temperature derived from Satellite AVHRR measurements. SST from 1985-1995 in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific basins. This animation was made for and shown at the RSMAS ONR site review in the spring of 1998.

Data

The 18km / 2 day SST data is available from our anonymous ftp site at ftp:jerry.rsmas.miami.edu/pub/SST18km The global daily data files are in NetCDF format and several Fortran programs are available to read the data files. See the read.me file for more information.

Notes

Funding for the analysis of this SST product was provided by the Office of Naval Research, NASA and NOAA.

To see more examples of this data set and learn more about ocean surface currents, see MPO's Ocean Surface Currents web page.

References

Chin, T.M. and A.J. Mariano. Space -time Interpolation of Oceanic Fronts. IEEE, Trans. on Geosciences and Remote Sensing., 35(3), 734-746, 1997.

Global Sea Surface Temperature and Currents, E.H. Ryan, A.J. Mariano, D.B. Olson, R.H. Evans, 1996 Fall AGU Meeting Eos, Transactions, AGU, Vol 77, No 46, November 12, 1996 (OP22A-16).

Mariano, A.J. and O.B. Brown. Efficient objective analysis of dynamically heterogeneous and nonstationary fields via the parameter matrix. Deep-Sea Res., 39(7/8), 1992, 1255-1271.

Example Plots and Animations
	*Global Monthly Means* - Slide show of the 12 monthly means.
	*Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas* - Geoff Samuels has made a clickable map of the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas that show the monthly means of this data set as well as surface currents, wind, air temperature, precipitation and water clarity.
	*Gulf of Mexico* -
	*Gulf Stream* - 4km resolution OA map of July 14, 1995. The red line is the Gulf Stream Northern Edge digitized from a 2 day composite (Chin and Mariano, 1997).
	*ENSO* - SST Anomilies in the Eastern Pacific for December 1996 and 1997.
	*Hurricanes* - QuickTime movie (~2.8Megs) showing cooling along hurricane tracks in 1995. SST data is every 2 days, current hurricane track are red dots.
	*Spin* - Global Sea Surface Temperature derived from Satellite AVHRR measurements. SST from 1985-1995 in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific basins. This animation was made for and shown at the RSMAS ONR site review in the spring of 1998.