Validation of AVHRR/MODIS/AMSR-E satellite SST products in the West Pacific

Sea surface temperature (SST) is one of the most important variables related to the global ocean-atmosphere system. Satellite-derived SSTs, which can provide long-term high-resolution quality controlled SST products, are widely used in studying atmospheric and oceanic problems, including fisheries, meteorological oceanographic operational businesses, and oceanic environmental management. However, these Satellite-derived SST data still need to be validated to confirm these SST data generated from the remote sensors can be used as believed for the further study. The often used way in the validation is comparing Satellite-derived SST data with in-situ measurements originating from ships and buoys. In this paper, the weekly 4 km resolution AVHRR SST data (2002 - 2006). the weekly 4 km resolution MODIS SST data (2002-2007) and the daily 25 km resolution AMSR-E SST data (2002-2007) are chosen as the Satellite-derived SST products, the TAO 1m depth data and drift buoy SST data are chosen as the in-situ SST data. The indicators of the validation are bias and RMSE (Root Mean Square Error) between the Satellite-derived SST products and in-situ data. The result shows that AVHRR data agrees well with TAO data and the differences between MODIS / AMSR-E SST data and drift buoy data are both smaller than AVHRR.