A new global satellite-based sea surface temperature climatology

Abstract

A new approach to the generation of a global sea surface temperature (SST) climatology from satellite data is presented. This work is an extension of Casey and Cornillon [1999] who demonstrated the overall superiority of constructing a global climatology using exclusively advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) Pathfinder satellite SST data vs. blended in situ/satellite data. In this implementation, a global pentad (five day) climatology was derived from daily 9 km AVHRR Pathfinder SST data through Gaussian interpolation and averaging. Performance of this climatology with respect to the Casey 9 km pentad satellite and Reynolds 1° monthly climatologies was then investigated by examining the standard deviation of the anomaly data set constructed by subtracting climatological SST observations from co-located long-term in situ SST observations. In all areas examined this new climatology, hereafter referred to as the JPL pentad climatology, demonstrated modest improvements over the other climatologies.