Solid-State Radiometer Measurements of Sea Surface Skin Temperature

Abstract

Satellite sea surface skin temperature (SSST) maps are readily available from precisely calibrated radiometer systems such as the ERS along-track scanning radiometer and, in the near future, from the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer. However, the use of subsurface bulk sea surface temperature (BSST) measurements as the primary source of in situ data required for the development of new sea surface temperature algorithms and the accurate validation of these global datasets is questionable. This is because BSST measurements are not a measure of the sea surface skin temperature, which is actually observed by a satellite infrared radiometer. Consequently, the use of BSST data for validation and derivation of satellite derived ?pseudo-BSST? and SSST datasets will limit their accuracy to at least the rms deviation of the BSST?SSST difference, typically about ±0.5 K. Unfortunately, the prohibitive cost and difficulty of deploying infrared radiometers at sea has prevented the regular collection of a comprehensive global satellite SSST validation dataset. In response to this situation, an assessment of the TASCO THI-500L infrared radiometer system as a potential candidate for the widespread validation of satellite SSST observations is presented. This is a low-cost, broadband radiometer that has been commonly deployed in the field to measure SSST by several research groups. A comparison between SSST derived from TASCO THI-500L measurements and contemporaneous scanning infrared sea surface temperature radiometer measurements, which are accurate to better than 0.1 K, demonstrates low bias (0.1 K) and rms (0.08 K) differences between the two instruments. However, to achieve this accuracy, the TASCO THI-500L radiometer must be deployed with care to ensure that the radiometer fore-optics are kept free of salt water contamination and shaded from direct sunlight. When this is done, this type of low-cost radiometer system could form the core of a global SSST validation program.