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Metop-C Sustainment in Blended SST

(NOAA Collaborators:Eileen Maturi )

Research Topic: Data Fusion and Algorithm Development
Task Leader: Andrew Harris
Sponsor: PSDI JSTAR
Published Date: 11/10/2020
AHAH_MOSF_20

NOAA’s increasingly popular Geo-Polar Blended SST analysis is proving to be a very high quality product, making full use of the latest geostationary and polar-orbiter data at maximum resolution.  It underpins the NOAA Coral Reef Monitoring suite of products, and the Ocean Heat Content product used by the NHC.  The UK Met Office OSTIA analysis has been used as the bias correction reference for the numerous satellite data sources going into the analysis.  However, the bias correction methodology for the Geo-Polar Blended Analysis is in the process of being overhauled, removing the dependence on OSTIA.  Along with high-quality SST observations from the VIIRS instruments on S-NPP and now NOAA-20, 1-km resolution SST data are being assimilated from the venerable AVHRR instruments carried on the Eumetsat MetOp platforms.  While performance of the AVHRR and VIIRS-based ACSPO products are broadly comparable, there exist notable differences, primarily due to their being fewer degrees of freedom available for SST retrieval with the older instrument.  The ACSPO team has developed a piecewise regression approach to remove residual biases, but the performance is somewhat variable, potentially detrimental in polar regions, and inconsistent across the three MetOp platforms.  A comparison of product behaviors versus higher-quality VIIRS observation will allow for better quality control and improved use of MetOp AVHRR SSTs in the Geo-Polar Blended Analysis.

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