SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE MERGED FROM MULTI-SENSOR DATA

Sea surface temperature (SST) from satellite infrared measurements has long history. The polar-orbit satellite products have high spatial resolution about 1 km. However, the applications of satellite infrared SST have been limited by the presence of the clouds. The accurate satellite microwave measurements of SST are available. The advantage of microwave SST is the penetration of cloud. But the spatial resolution is relatively low, about 50 km. The cloud-free high-resolution SST is promising by the merging of microwave SST with infrared SST. Regional high-resolution data from NOAA AVHRR have been received by a ground station at Ocean University of China. With the Dragon Program, the ENVISAT/AATSR SST data are provided. The could-free high-resolution SST are obtained by merging of infrared and microwave SSTs from AVHRR, AATSR, and AMSR-E, which are being used for oceanic studies such as the observation and modeling of the Kuroshio. 1. INTRODCUTION Sea surface temperature (SST) from satellite infrared measurements has long history. The polar-orbit satellite SST data have been used for oceanic studies. The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR) on board National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar-orbiting operational environmental satellites have provided operational SST observations for more than two decades [1][2]. The rms error of AVHRR-derived SST for the global coverage is about 0.6-0.7K [3] [4]. The Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) onboard ENVISAT is the third in a series of instruments, continuing from ATSR-1 and ATSR-2, which aim to provide 10 year near-continuous precise SST data set at the levels of accuracy required (0.3K or better) for climate researc