NOAA has been producing sea surface temperatures (SSTs) from satellite data since 1972.  Monitoring of sea surface temperature (SST) from earth-orbiting infrared radiometers has had a wide impact on oceanographic science.  Currently, one of the principal sources of infrared data for sea surface temperature measurement is from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) carried on NOAA's Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES), beginning in 1978.  AVHRR is a broad-band, four or five channel (depending on the model) scanner, sensing in the visible, near-infrared, and thermal infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.  The POES satellite system offers the advantage of daily global coverage, by making near-polar orbits roughly 14.1 times daily. In-situ SSTs, from buoys (drifting and moored) are used operationally to maintain accuracy -- removing any biases, and compiling statistics with time (1,2,3).

The image shown at the top of this page is provided twice weekly in near real-time as an experimental nighttime 50km satellite AVHRR-derived SST field.  It was primarily developed for producing our thermally-induced coral reef bleaching early warning products: SST anomaly, coral reef bleaching HotSpot anomaly, Degree Heating Weeks, and Tropical Coral Bleaching Indices.  Nighttime SST observations are used for producing our coral reef products to eliminate the diurnal variation caused by diurnal solar heating at the sea surface (primarily at the "skin" interface, 10-20 µm).  A more conservative prediction can be made from nighttime SST observations.  NOAA's operational SSTs use both day and night retrievals, but nighttime SSTs compare favorably with in-situ SSTs at 1 meter depths (4).

A coral reef team of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) generates these coral reef bleaching monitoring products.  The NESDIS team comprises scientists from the Marine Applications Science Team (MAST) in the Oceanic Research and Applications Division (ORAD) of Office of research and Applications (ORA) and from the Product Systems Branch (PSB) of the Information Processing Division (IPD) of the Office of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution (OSDPD).

References

(1) McClain, E.P. et al., 1985: Comparative performance of AVHRR-based multi channel sea surface temperatures; J. Geophys. Res., 90, 11,587.

(2) Strong, A.E., 1991: Sea surface temperature signals from space. In: Encyclopedia of Earth System Science, Ed. W.A. Nierenberg, Vol 4, Academic Press, San Diego, CA, pp 69-80.

(3) Strong, A. E., E. Kearns, and K. K. Gjovig, 2000: Sea Surface Temperature Signals from Satellites - An Update. Geophys. Res. Lett, 27(11): 1667-1670 (June 1, 2000).

(4) Montgomery, R. S., and A. E. Strong, 1995: Coral Bleaching threatens oceans, life. Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, 75, 145-147.