Parameterisations of the ocean skin effect and implications for satellite-based measurement of sea-surface temperature
Horrocks, L.A.
Satellite-based retrievals of sea-surface temperature (SST) hold great potential for augmenting and improving existing global climate analyses. However, optimal blending of satellite data with in situ measurements of SST requires an accurate estimate of the temperature difference between radiometric skin and bulk water sampled below the skin. Contemporaneous ship-borne radiometer and in situ measurements of sea surface temperature were obtained during a cruise in the West Pacific and used to define the night time skin-bulk temperature difference. A strong trend of increasing temperature difference with decreasing wind speed was observed. Three published parameterisatio?ns of the skin effect have been tested against the ship observations, with excellent agreement achieved by one of these. Good results were also obtained when this scheme was forced by heat fluxes from the Met Office numerical weather prediction global analysis collocated with the observations in space and time. The implementation of a skin effect model in a global satellite data processing system was tested using collocated observations of SST from buoys (bulk) and from ATSR-2 (skin) during 1995-1997. This is a vital step towards integrating accurate satellite retrievals of SST with traditional in situ data sources for climate variability studies.
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