ERA-40-aided assessment of the atmospheric influence on satellite retrieval of Adriatic Sea surface temperature

Tomažić, Igor; Kuzmić, Milivoj (2009) ERA-40-aided assessment of the atmospheric influence on satellite retrieval of Adriatic Sea surface temperature. Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, 104 (1-2). pp. 37-51. ISSN 0177-7971

| Request a personal copy from author

Preview

PDF - Accepted Version
Download (943kB) | Preview

Official URL: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00703-00...

Abstract

The aim of this work is assessment of regional atmospheric influence on satellite derivation of Adriatic Sea surface temperature (SST). To this end the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) ERA-40 reanalysis dataset has been employed to provide the temperature and humidity profiles and surface data, while the RTTOV 8.7 radiative transfer model was used to calculate the top-of-atmosphere brightness temperatures for the advanced very high-resolution radiometer (AVHRR) channels. Ten ERA-40 grid points over the Adriatic Sea were used in the analysis, providing 29, 590, 00 UTC and 12 UTC, clear-sky profiles. Climatological analysis of the ERA-40 profiles demonstrated distinct seasonal variability over the Adriatic Sea. Seasonality noted in the temperature and specific humidity profiles also evinced in the atmospheric transmittance, thermal channels temperature deficit, and derived c and q parameters. A multivariate analysis was applied to relate the simulated top-of-atmosphere brightness temperatures to the Adriatic SSTs in order to generate exploratory sets of SST retrieval coefficients. All derived coefficient sets exhibited smaller noise amplification factor than the global counterpart. A test comparison of satellite-derived SST with an 11-month in situ SST series showed than locally derived coefficients provide smaller scatter (improved precision), and skincentred bias that requires additional adjustment. Almost identical SST residual and error metric was obtained with seasonally adjusted classical split-window coefficients and with coefficients explicitly accommodating water-vapor dependence. Comparison with data reinforces the notion that the atmosphere over the Adriatic may exhibit variability that cannot be fully accommodated by globally adjusted correction.

Item Type:

Article

Additional Information:

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00703-008-0015-2

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Adriatic ERA-40 SST

Subjects:

NATURAL SCIENCES > Geology

Divisions:

Division for Marine and Enviromental Research

Projects: