Merging satellite infrared and microwave SSTs: Methodology and evaluation of the new SST

The Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE) requires the availability of a global analyzed SST field with high-resolution in space (at least 10 km) and time (at least 24 hours). The new generation SST products would be based on the merging of SSTs from various satellites data and in situ measurements. The merging of satellite infrared and microwave SST data is investigated in this paper. After pre-processing of the individual satellite data, objective analysis was applied to merge the SST data from NOAA AVHRR (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer), GMS S-VISSR (Geostationary Meteorological Satellite, Stretched-Visible Infrared Spin Scan Radiometer), TRMM MI (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, Microwave Imager: TMI) and VIRS (Visible and Infrared Scanner). The 0.05° daily cloud-free SST products were generated in three regions, viz., the Kuroshio region, the Asia-Pacific Region and the Pacific, during one-year period of October 1999 to September 2000. Comparisons of the merged SSTs with Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) buoy SSTs show that, with considerable error sources from individual satellite data and merging procedure, an accuracy of 0.95 K is achieved. The results demonstrate the practicality and advantages of merging SST measurements from various satellite sensors.