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Sea Surface Temperatures from Satellite Observations
An historic, simple, and straightforward method of measuring the sea surface temperature is to scoop some water into a bucket and measure the water temperature with a thermometer. This method does not provide an accurate picture of the global distribution of ocean temperatures. Observations from satellites provide a better means of describing a global view of the ocean at a better time resolution. Using the bucket method described above, it would take a ship 10 years to cover the same area a satellite covers in two minutes!
Determining Sea Surface Temperature (SST) from satellite observations does have its drawbacks:
Latest GOES SST composite from CIMSS.
The geostationary perspective provides frequent viewing, which permits improved spatial coverage with time, as clouds move in and out of any particular region. Images of the derived SST are generated every three hours from GOES observations. Once a day, at about 1600 UTC, a composite image (see above) is produced from the three-hourly SST images. In this composite image, the warmest SST value at any location is retained. SST values are color-coded in this image, from cold grays and blues to warmer yellows and reds. Land is colored light beige; while, obscuring clouds are indicated by black.
An animation ( java loop) of recent SSTs derived from a GOES satellite provides information on ocean currents.
Typical seasonal changes in the SST fields may be seen by viewing daily composite images from October 1997, November 1997, and January 1998.