ePubs

The open archive for STFC research publications

Full Record Details

Persistent URL http://purl.org/net/epubs/work/60509
Record Status Checked
Record Id 60509
Title The accuracy of SST retrievals from AATSR: An initial assessment through geophysical validation against in situ radiometers, buoys and other SST data sets
Contributors
Abstract The Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) was launched on Envisat in March 2002. The AATSR instrument is designed to retrieve precise and accurate global sea surface temperature (SST) that, combined with the large data set collected from its predecessors, ATSR and ATSR-2, will provide a long term record of SST data that is greater than 15 years. This record can be used for independent monitoring and detection of climate change. The AATSR validation programme has successfully completed its initial phase. The programme involves validation of the AATSR derived SST values using in situ radiometers, in situ buoys and global SST fields from other data sets. The results of the initial programme presented here will demonstrate that the AATSR instrument is currently close to meeting its scientific objectives of determining global SST to an accuracy of 0.3 K (one sigma). For night time data, the analysis gives a warm bias of between +0.04 K (0.28 K) for buoys to +0.06 K (0.20 K) for radiometers, with slightly higher errors observed for day time data, showing warm biases of between +0.02 (0.39 K) for buoys to +0.11 K (0.33 K) for radiometers. They show that the ATSR series of instruments continues to be the world leader in delivering accurate space-based observations of SST, which is a key climate parameter.
Organisation CCLRC , SSTD
Keywords
Funding Information
Related Research Object(s):
Licence Information:
Language English (EN)
Type Details URI(s) Local file(s) Year
Journal Article Adv Space Res 37, no. 4 (2006): 764-769. https://doi.org/1…16/j.asr.2005.09.037 2006