Sea surface temperature (Reynolds-SST)

: Global SST distribution as obtained for August 10, 2010 (Reynolds SST)

Access

UNRESTRICTED

Get data via FTP (daily and monthly, flat binary)

Get data from PO.DAAC (daily, netCDF)

RESTRICTED only accessable in ZMAW net or via CliSAP login What does that mean?

monthly means & daily data, netCDF:

View Data via LAS

Access data via OPeNDAP

Data access via file system: /data/icdc/ocean/reynolds_sst

Description

We offer here Version 2 of the well known Reynolds SST data set. It comprises two new high resolution sea surface temperature (SST) analysis products that have been developed using optimum interpolation (OI). One product uses Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) infrared satellite SST data (Pathfinder data: September 1981 through December 2005; operational AVHRR: January 2006 onwards). The other uses AVHRR and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR) on the NASA Earth Observing System satellite SST data (June 2002 onwards). Both products also use in situ data from ships and buoys and include a large-scale adjustment of satellite biases with respect to the in situ data.

ICDC offers the data set that is based on AVHRR data because this is the longest time series available (since 1981). The shorter time series based on the combination of AVHRR and AMSR-E data (since 2002) are offered upon request.

More information is given at

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/description.php

and in the Technical Note by Reynolds

(see also the publications below)

Parameters

Name	Unit
Daily data
SST	K
Retrieval uncertainty	K
Landmask	none
Ice mask	none
Monthly data
SST	°C
Landmask	none

Coverage, temporal and spatial resolution

Period and temporal resolution:

09/1981 to 02/2013
Daily
11/1981 to 12/2012
Monthly

Coverage and spatial resolution:

Global
Spatial resolution: 0.25° x 0.25°, cartesian grid
Geographic latitude: -89.875°N to 89.875°N
Geographic longitude: 0.125°E to 359.875°E
Dimension: 1440 columns x 720 rows
Altitude: 0.0 m

Format:

NetCDF

Data quality

The offered data set includes an error estimation for each grid cell; see Reynolds et al. (2002; 2007) as well as the recent Technical Note for details.

In addition, the daily data set includes the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis sea ice concentration. This is has been omitted in the monthly averages.

Contact

Stefan Kern
CliSAP / KlimaCampus / ICDC
Email: stefan.kern@zmaw.de

Richard W. Reynolds
NOAA/NESDIS/National Climatic Data Center
151 Patton Ave
Asheville, NC 28801
USA
Email: Richard.W.Reynolds@noaa.gov

Chunying Liu
NOAA/NESDIS/National Climatic Data Center
151 Patton Ave
Asheville, NC 28801
USA
Email: Chunying.Liu@noaa.gov

References

Webpage of NOAA's OI 1/4 degree SST analysis
Reynolds et al., J. Climate, 15, 2002
Reynolds et al., J. Climate, 20, 2007
Reynolds, Technical Note: Whats-new-v2_Jan30_2009.pdf
For interested people (because this sensor might be the future with better skills than combination AVHRR-AMSR-E): AATSR Special Section in Remote Sensing of Environment

Data citation

Please cite Reynolds et al., J. Climate, 20, 2007, when using the data; see also the References above.

Plus: Distributed in netCDF format by the Integrated Climate Data Center (ICDC, http://icdc.zmaw.de) University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.