Solid-State Radiometer Measurements of Sea Surface Skin Temperature

Abstract Satellite sea surface skin temperature (SSST) maps are readily available from precisely calibrated radiometer systems such as the ERS along-track scanning radiometer and, in the near future, from the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer. However, the use of subsurface bulk sea surface temperature (BSST) measurements as the primary source of in situ data required for the development of new sea surface temperature algorithms and the accurate validation of these global datasets is questionable. This is because BSST measurements are not a measure of the sea surface skin temperature, which is actually observed by a satellite infrared radiometer. Consequently, the use of BSST data for validation and derivation of satellite derived “pseudo-BSST” and SSST datasets will limit their accuracy to at least the rms deviation of the BSST–SSST difference, typically about ±0.5 K. Unfortunately, the prohibitive cost and difficulty of deploying infrared radiometers at sea has prevented the regular collecti...