Climatological Usefulness of Satellite Determined Sea-Surface Temperatures in the Tropical Pacific

Abstract

Two different satellite estimates of sea-surface temperature (SST) have been compared with observed temperature sections in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The satellite products were found to be biased with respect to the observations by approximately 1?4°C. The bias field had a strong latitudinal and longitudinal structure. The spatial structure of this field and the large magnitude of errors in estimates of SST, if a normal situation, preclude the use of the satellite products by themselves in climatological studies of the area. However, if some means can be found to remove the bias from the satellite products then they will be marginally useful in the study of interannual variations of SST in the tropical Pacific. The errors associated with the estimates of satellite SST are strongly linked to cloud cover and the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, indicating present methods of correcting for these types of contamination are inadequate. The errors also depend on the number of observations that have gone into the satellite estimate of SST.