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Comparison between satellite and in situ sea surface temperature data in the Western Mediterranean Sea

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Abstract

A comparison between in situ and satellite sea surface temperature (SST) is presented for the Western Mediterranean Sea during 1999. Several international databases are used to extract in situ data (World Ocean Database, MEDAR/Medatlas, Coriolis Data Center, International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set). The in situ data are classified into different platforms or sensors (conductivity–temperature–depth, expendable bathythermographs, drifters, bottles, and ships), in order to assess the relative accuracy of these type of data with respect to Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer SST satellite data. It is shown that the results of the error assessment vary with the sensor type, the depth of the in situ measurements, and the database used. Ship data are the most heterogeneous data set, and therefore present the largest differences with respect to in situ data. A cold bias is detected in drifter data. The differences between satellite and in situ data are not normally distributed. However, several analysis techniques, as merging and data assimilation, usually require Gaussian-distributed errors. The statistics obtained during this study will be used in future work to merge the in situ and satellite data sets into one unique estimation of the SST.

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Acknowledgements

This work was realized in the context of the HiSea—SR/12/140 project funded by the Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO) in the frame of the Research Program For Earth Observation “STEREO II”. The AVHRR Oceans Pathfinder SST data were obtained through the online PO.DAAC Ocean ESIP Tool (POET) at the Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC), NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. The different providers for the databases used (World Ocean Database, MEDAR/MedAtlas, Coriolis Data Center, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set) are also acknowledged for their important work of compiling extensive amounts of data and making them publicly available. The National Fund for Scientific Research, Belgium, is acknowledged for funding the post-doctoral positions of A. Alvera-Azcárate and A. Barth and for funding C. Troupin’s thesis through a FRIA grant. This is a MARE publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. AGO-GHER-MARE, University of Liège, Allée du Six Aout, 17, Sart Tilman, Liège, 4000, Belgium

    Aida Alvera-Azcárate, Charles Troupin, Alexander Barth & Jean-Marie Beckers

  2. F.R.S.-FNRS (National Fund for Scientific Research), Brussels, Belgium

    Aida Alvera-Azcárate & Alexander Barth

Authors
  1. Aida Alvera-Azcárate
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  2. Charles Troupin
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  3. Alexander Barth
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  4. Jean-Marie Beckers
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Correspondence to Aida Alvera-Azcárate.

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Responsible Editor: Pierre-Marie Poulain

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Multiparametric observation and analysis of the Sea

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Alvera-Azcárate, A., Troupin, C., Barth, A. et al. Comparison between satellite and in situ sea surface temperature data in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Ocean Dynamics 61, 767–778 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-011-0403-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-011-0403-x

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