Cloudy Winter Satellite Temperature Retrievals over the Extratropical Northern Hemisphere Oceans

Abstract

An experimental colocation and statistical regression scheme is used to verify the hypothesis that large consistent mean errors in the cloudy oceanic satellite temperature retrievals north of 30°N from TIROS-N are due to a continental bias in the statistical colocation base. Sea surface water temperature is a useful predictor for these conditions. Significant improvement in these retrievals is possible. However, much of this improvement requires the presence in the colocation base of the, mid-ocean radiosondes from the ocean weather ships.