Estimating sea surface temperature measurement methods using characteristic differences in the diurnal cycle

Carella, G., Kennedy, J. J., Berry, D. I., Hirahara, S., Merchant, C. J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4687-9850, Morak-Bozzo, S. and Kent, E. C. (2018) Estimating sea surface temperature measurement methods using characteristic differences in the diurnal cycle. Geophysical Research Letters, 45 (1). pp. 363-371. ISSN 0094-8276 doi: 10.1002/2017gl076475

Abstract/Summary

Lack of reliable observational metadata represents a key barrier to understanding sea surface temperature (SST) measurement biases, a large contributor to uncertainty in the global surface record. We present a method to identify SST measurement practice by comparing the observed SST diurnal cycle from individual ships with a reference from drifting buoys under similar conditions of wind and solar radiation. Compared to existing estimates, we found a larger number of engine room-intake (ERI) reports post War World II and in the period 1960 – 1980. Differences in the inferred mixture of observations lead to a systematic warmer shift of the bias adjusted SST anomalies from 1980 compared to previous estimates, while reducing the ensemble spread. Changes in mean field differences between bucket and ERI SST anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere over the period 1955 – 1995 could be as large as 0.5 °C and are not well reproduced by current bias adjustment models.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/74654
Identification Number/DOI	10.1002/2017gl076475
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Uncontrolled Keywords	General Earth and Planetary Sciences, Geophysics
Publisher	American Geophysical Union
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