Sea Surface temperature from HY-1B COCTS

The Haiyang (HY) series satellites operated by the National Ocean Satellite Application Center (NSOAS) of the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) of China were designed with the capability for Sea Surface temperature (SST) observations from space. The HY-1A was launched in May 2002 and HY-1B was launched in April 2007. The Chinese Ocean Color and Temperature Scanner (COCTS) onboard HY-1 series satellites have thermal infrared split window channels for SST observations. The HY-1B COCTS data in the northwest Pacific are investigated. The Level 2B (L2B) SST products from HY-1B COCTS are compared with in situ SST measurements by buoy in the study region. The results show the bias of 1.22 °C and the standard deviation of 1.78°C. The COCTS L2B SST values are higher than buoy data. A new algorithm based on the non-linear SST (NLSST) algorithm is developed to retrieve SST from HY-1B COCTS Level 1 B (L1B) data using the matchups between satellite and buoy data. An independent set of matchups is used to evaluate the new SST. The bias is removed and the standard deviation is 1.35 °C which is lower than that of the L2B SST products.