A reprocessing for climate of sea surface temperature from the along-track scanning radiometers: A new retrieval scheme

We present a new coefficient-based retrieval scheme for estimation of sea surface temperature (SST) from the Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) instruments. The new coefficients are banded by total column water vapour (TCWV), obtained from numerical weather prediction analyses. TCWV banding reduces simulated regional retrieval biases to <0.1 K compared to biases similar to 0.2 K for global coefficients. Further, detailed treatment of the instrumental viewing geometry reduces simulated view-angle related biases from similar to 0.1 K down to <0.005 K for dual-view retrievals using channels at 11 and 12 mu m. A novel analysis of trade-offs related to the assumed noise level when defining coefficients is undertaken, and we conclude that adding a small nominal level of noise (0.01 K) is optimal for our purposes. When applied to ATSR observations, some inter-algorithm biases appear as TCWV-related differences in SSTs estimated from different channel combinations. The final step in coefficient determination is to adjust the offset coefficient in each TCWV band to match results from a reference algorithm. This reference uses the dual-view observations of 3.7 and 11 mu m. The adjustment is independent of in situ measurements, preserving independence of the retrievals. The choice of reference is partly motivated by uncertainty in the calibration of the 12 mu m of Advanced ATSR. Lastly, we model the sensitivities of the new retrievals to changes to TCWV and changes in true SST, confirming that dual-view SSTs are most appropriate for climatological applications. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.