The accuracy of AVHRR SST determined using shipborne radiometers

Observations of the oceanic thermal skin made during SUDOFEX have demonstrated the effectiveness of operationally using new shipborne radiometers to show the correspondence between in situ radiometric skin sea surface temperature (skin SST) and the present AVHRR sea surface temperature (pseudo bulk SST) products. A recommendation is made that algorithms should be derived that produce skin SST by regression against in situ skin SST rather than subsurface thermometer data. This will eliminate SST errors arising from both the oceanic thermal skin effect and the diurnal thermocline.