Sea surface temperature from the new Japanese geostationary meteorological Himawari-8 satellite

Himawari-8 is a new geostationary meteorological satellite operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). The Earth Observation Research Center of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in collaboration with the JMA produces skin sea surface temperatures (SSTs) from Himawari-8 data. A new quasi-physical algorithm was used to calculate SSTs. Cloud screening based on the Bayesian inference method was used to detect cloudy pixels. Himawari-8 SSTs from June to September 2015 were compared with drifting and tropical moored buoy data. This comparison showed a root-mean-square difference of approximate to 0.59K and a bias of approximate to-0.16K against the buoy data. Positive and variable biases were found in seas along the viewing boundaries.