Comparison of AVHRR measurements of sea surface temperature with surface observations around New Zealand

Abstract

Multi‐channel Advanced Very‐High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) images of sea surface temperature (SST) in the New Zealand region have been archived since 1989. A comparison of these data with conductivity‐temperature‐depth (CTD) and expendable bathythermograph (XBT) data shows that the AVHRR temperatures are about 7% too high (when expressed in °C). Once the AVHRR temperatures have been corrected, they measure SST with an uncertainty of about 0.7°C.

Keywords:

• AVHRR
• SST
• remote sensing
• algorithm validation