Comparison of satellite-retrieved sea-surface temperatures with drifter and ship-borne measurements

Abstract

Sea-surface temperatures (SST) retrieved from satellite imagery are compared with in-situ measured data. The satellite data are from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) of the series of NOAA satellites, partly purchased from the University of Dundee (UK) or recorded by the new high resolution receiver of SACLANTCEN, a TeraScan system (Seaspace Corp., USA). Both data sets have been pmmsed by the TeraScan software. he ground-truth data are 6rom satellite-tracked drifters and from measurements onboard NRV Alliance. The aim of this memorandum is to determine the performance of the TeraScan system with respect to the accuracy of retrieved SST. For reliably determining SST from the AVHRR, two steps have to be performed. First, cloud contaminated data have to be removed and second, the measured brightness temperatum have to be axreaed for atmospheric effects. The impact of these procedures on the accuracy of satellite-measured SST is investigated.