Oral Presentation AMOS Annual Meeting and International Conference on Tropical Meteorology and Oceanography

Exploiting higher resolution satellite sensors to produce 2 km multi-sensor composites of sea surface temperature (#158)

Pallavi Govekar 1 , Christopher Griffin 1 , Helen Beggs 1
  1. Bureau of Meteorology, Docklands, VIC, Australia

Sea surface temperature (SST) products within a few kilometres of coasts that can resolve fine-scale features, such as ocean upwelling, are increasingly in demand. In response to user requirements for gap-free, highest spatial resolution, best quality and highest accuracy SST data, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) introduces new Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) 0.02º x 0.02º Muti-sensor SST products. These SST products are constructed by compositing 1 - 4 km resolution SST from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensors on METOP-A, METOP-B, NOAA-15, NOAA-18 and NOAA-19, along with 0.75 - 1.5km SST from Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensors on Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20 polar-orbiting satellites. Compositing observations from multiple missions reduces spatial data gaps due to clouds and presents opportunity for easy-to-use, more gap-free SST data. The Multi-sensor L3S SST products provide better input for applications such as Bureauâ's ReefTemp NextGen Coral Bleaching Nowcasting and IMOS OceanCurrent. They also provide useful insight into the study of marine heatwaves and ocean upwelling in near-coastal regions. We discuss our method to combine data from different sensors and present validation of the Multi-sensor L3S SST against in situ SST data.