Comparison of sea surface temperatures on the Scotian Shelf derived from AVHRR and aerial bathythermograph surveys

Sea surface temperature (SST) fields of the coastal ocean off eastern Nova Scotia (Scotian Shelf) are required for assimilation into a dynamical ocean model. Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) imagery can provide operational SST but due to the high incidence of cloud cover and fog in the region and low water temperatures, special attention must be paid to the cloud masking process in order to maximize the amount and quality of data. We have applied three different cloud masking algorithms to NOAA-14 AVHRR data from October 2000 and discuss the effect they have on the resultant SST coverage. We also compare the AVHRR SST, calculated using NOAA´s multi-channel SST algorithm, to in situ measurements from two surveys of water temperature made with aircraft-deployed sensors. It was found that on average, the AVHRR was within 0.64 degC of the in situ values which are measured at a depth of 1.5 m.