High-Resolution Monthly Mean Sea Surface Temperature Fields For the Western North Atlantic Ocean Produced Using the NASA/NOAA Pathfinder Algorithm

Brunner, A-M E.G., J.M. Mesias, and J.J. Bisagni
School for Marine Science & Technology and Physics Department, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Availability of fifteen years (1985-1999) of declouded Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data from NOAA's polar-orbiting satellites, processed using the NASA/NOAA Pathfinder sea surface temperature (SST) algorithm, have produced high-quality SST products that are useful for climate studies. However, products available from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been limited to 54 km, 18 km, and 9 km resolution. Quality, high-resolution SST products are now available through application of the Pathfinder SST algorithm to full-resolution (1.1 km) AVHRR data by researchers located at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography (URI/GSO). Through collaboration with URI/GSO, we have produced high-resolution (1.2 km) monthly-mean SST fields for a large domain located between 30 and 56 deg N latitude and 41 to 78 deg W longitude in the western North Atlantic. Filtering of the monthly mean fields involved creating different masks, in order to find usable pixels, after a median-filter w as applied. Differencing with long-term monthly mean fields will produce monthly SST anomaly fields. Analysis of monthly-mean SST anomaly fields over the 15-year period will enable both basin-scale and localized studies of SST changes possibly related to climate variability.