CMB: Sea Surface Temperature Analyses

The optimum interpolation (OI) sea surface temperature (SST) analysis is produced weekly on a one-degree grid. The analysis uses in situ and satellite SST's plus SST's simulated by sea-ice cover. Before the analysis is computed, the satellite data is adjusted for biases using the method of Reynolds (1988) and Reynolds and Marsico (1993). A description of the OI analysis can be found in Reynolds and Smith (1994). The bias correction improves the large scale accuracy of the OI. Examples of the effect of recent corrections is given by Reynolds (1993).

Images of the most recent weekly SST fields are available here. The anomaly is the departure from the Smith and Reynolds (1998) Adjusted OI climatology for the 1961-90 base period.

Global weekly anomaly SST

Tropical Pacific weekly mean and anomaly SSTs

The in situ and satellite data distributions for the most recent weekly analysis are shown here:

Ship and Buoy SST Observations and Ice Cover

AVHRR SST Retrievals

Global mean and anomaly plots for the most recent month are also available:

Global monthly mean SST

Global monthly anomaly SST

The Smith and Reynolds Adjusted OI Climatology (base period 1961-1990) was used to generate the anomaly plots above. The monthly climatology fields can be seen here:
January February March April May June July August September October November December

An animation of recent SST anomaly conditions in the Pacific are available courtesy of NOAA's Climate Diagnostics Center. For more information on El Niño, see the NOAA/OGP El Niño - Southern Oscillation page.

You can make your own displays of past weekly and monthly SST fields and anomalies starting from the following sites:

The AB/CPC Data Page

The CDC Atmospheric Varibles Plotting Page

The IGOSS plotting Page

The SST digital data files are available via anonymous ftp:

user anonymous

Password: (your e-mail address)

cd /pub/cmb/sst

Each directory has a README file for help. The README file points to a text file which explains how to read the data in that directory.
Be sure to transfer the SST data in binary mode.

You can go directly to the directories using your browser:

Weekly SST files (Nov 1981 - present)

Monthly SST files (Nov 1981 - present)

Monthly SST climatology

A land-sea table for all the SST files

The most recent weekly OI analyses are in individual ascii files

To save binary files in "netscape": Right click on the file name In the menu that appears left click on "Save Link as"
To save binary files in "internet explorer": Simply double left click on the file name or Right click on the file name In the menu that appears left click on "Copy To Folder"

Our data are available in ASCII courtesy of the NCAR Data Support Section cataloged as dataset DS277.0

The weekly and monthly OI SST data are available in netCDF via CDC's Reynolds Sea Surface Temperature Page

A method for reconstructed SST fields has been developed by Smith et. al. (1996) for the time period 1950 to the near-present. This dataset is maintained at NCDC.
Because the satellite data makes the OI superior to any in situ analysis and because the reconstructed fields are only defined over a limited area, the OI SST is recommended instead of the reconstructed fields from 1982 onward.

References:

Reynolds, R.W., 1993: Impact of Mount Pinatubo aerosols on satellite-derived sea surface temperatures. J. Climate, 6, 768-774.

Reynolds, R. W. and D. C. Marsico, 1993: An improved real-time global sea surface temperature analysis. J. Climate, 6, 114-119.

Reynolds, R. W. and T. M. Smith, 1994: Improved global sea surface temperature analyses. J. Climate, 7, 929-948.

T. M. Smith and Reynolds, R. W., 1998: A high-resolution global sea surface temperature climatology for the 1961-90 base period. J. Climate, 11, 3320-3323.

Smith, T. M., R. W. Reynolds, R. E. Livezey, and D. C. Stokes 1996: Reconstruction of historical sea surface temperatures using empirical orthogonal functions. J. Climate, 9, 1403-1420.