Abstract
In this chapter we review several climatologically important variables with a history of observation from spaceborne platforms. These include sea surface temperature and wind vectors, altimetric estimates of sea surface height, energy and water vapor fluxes at the sea surface, precipitation over the ocean, and ocean color. We then discuss possible improvements in sampling for climate and climate change definition. Issues of consistency of different data sources, archiving and distribution of these types of data are discussed. The practical prospect of immediate international coordination through the concept of virtual constellations is discussed and applauded.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adler RF, Huffman GJ, Chang A, Ferraro R, Xie P, Janoviak J, Rudolf B, Schneider U, Curtis S, Bolvin D, Gruber A, Susskind J, Arkin P (2003) The version 2 global precipitation climatology project (GPCP) monthly precipitation analysis ( 1979- Present). J Hydromet 4:1147–1167.
Bentamy A, Queffeulou P, Quilfen Y, Katsaros KB (1999) Ocean surface wind fields estimated from satellite active and passive microwave instruments. IEEE Trans Geosci Remote Sens 37(5):2469–2486.
Bentamy A, Katsaros KB, Mestas-Nuñez AM, Drennan WM, Forde EB, Roquet H (2003) Satellite estimates of wind speed and latent heat flux over the global oceans. J Clim 16(4):636–656.
Bindoff NL, Willebrand J, Artale V, Cazenave A, Gregory J, Gulev S, Hanawa K, Le Quere C, Levitus S, Nojiri Y, Shum CK, Talley LD, Unnikrishnan A (2007) In: Solomon S, Qin D, Manning M, Chen Z, Marquis M, Averyt KB, Tignor M, Miller HL (eds) Observations: oceanic climate change and sea level, in climate change 2007. The physical science basis, contributions of working group i to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, New York.
Bourassa MA, Bonekamp H, Chang P, Chelton D, Courtney J, Edson R, Figa J, He Y, Hersbach H, Hilburn K, Lee T, Liu WT, Long D, Kelly K, Knabb R, Lindstorm E, Perrie W, Portabella M, Powell M, Rodriguez E, Smith D, Stoffelen A, Swail V, Wentz F (2010) Remotely sensed winds and wind stresses for marine forecasting and ocean modeling. In: Hall J, Harrison DE, Stammer D (eds) Proceedings of the “OceanObs’09: sustained ocean observations and information for society” conference, vol. 2. Venice, Italy, 21–25 September 2009, ESA Publication WPP-306. doi:10.5270/OceanObs09.cwp.08
Brisson A, Le Borgne P, Marsouin A (2001) Downward long-wave irradiance product manual. Version 1.1. Ocean and Sea Ice SAF, November 2001.
CEOS (2008) The earth observation handbook: climate change special edition 2008. http://www.eohandbook.com/. Accessed.
Cipollini P, Benveniste J, Bouffard J, Emery W, Gommenginger C, Griffin D, Høyer J, Madsen K, Mercier F, Miller L, Pascual A, Ravichandran M, Shillington F, Snaith H, Strub T, Vandemark D, Vignudelli S, Wilkin J, Woodworth P, Zavala-Garay J (2010) The role of altimetry in Coastal Observing Systems. In Hall J, Harrison DE, Stammer D (eds) Proceedings of OceanObs’09: Sustained Ocean Observations and Information for Society, vol 2, Venice, Italy, 21–25 September 2009, ESA Publication WPP-306. doi:10.5270/OceanObs09.cwp.16
Committee on the Future of Rainfall Measuring Missions/Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Division of Earth and Life Studies (2007) NOAA’s role in space-based global precipitation estimation and application, report. National Academies Press, Washington, DC, pp 131. ISBN 13: 978-0-309-10298-8 and 10: 0-309-10298-7.
Curry JA, Bentamy A, Bourassa MA, Bourras D, Brunke M, Castro S, Chou S, Clayson CA, Emery WJ, Eymard L, Fairall CW, Kubota M, Lin B, Perrie W, Reeder RR, Renfrew IA, Rossow WB, Schulz J, Smith SR, Webster PJ, Wick GA, Zeng X (2004) SEAFLUX. Bull Am Met Soc 85:409–424.
Donlon CJ, Robinson I, Casey KS, Vazquez-Cuervo F, Armstrong F, Arino O, Gentemann C, May D, LeBorgne P, Piollé J, Barton I, Beggs H, Poulter DJS, Merchant CJ, Bingham A, Heinz S, Harris A, Wick G, Emery B, Minnett P, Evans R, Llewellyn-Jones D, Mutlow C, Reynolds R, Kawamura H, Rayner N (2009) The global ocean data assimilation experiment (GODAE) high resolution sea surface temperature pilot project (GHRSST-PP), 2007. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 88(8):1197–1213. doi:10.1175/BAMS-88-8-1197
Donlon C, Casey K, Gentemann C, LeBorgne P, Robinson I, Reynold R, Merchant C, Llewellyn-Jones D, Minnett P, Piolle J, Cornillon P, Rayner N, Brandon T, Vazquez J, Armstron E, Beggs H, Barton I, Wick G, Castro S, Hoeyer J, May D, Arino O, Poulter D, Evans R, Mutlow C, Bingham A, Harris A (2010) Successes and challenges for the modern sea surface temperature observing system. In: Hall J, Harrison DE, Stammer D (eds) Proceedings of OceanObs’09: Sustained Ocean Observations and Information for Society, vol 2, Venice, Italy, 21–25, September 2009, ESA Publication WPP-306. doi:10.5270/OceanObs09.cwp.24
Ebuchi N, Graber HC, Caruso MJ (2002) Evaluation of wind vectors observed by QuikSCAT/SeaWinds using ocean buoy data. J Atmos Oceanic Tech 19(12):2049–2062.
Fairall C, Barnier B, Berry D, Bourassa M, Bradley E, Clayson C, de Leeuw G, Drennan W, Gille S, Gulev S, Kent E, McGillis W, Quartly G, Ryabinin V, Smith S, Weller R, Yelland M, Zhang H (2010) Observations to quantify air-sea fluxes and their role in climate variability and predictability. In Hall J, Harrison DE, Stammer D (eds) Proceedings of OceanObs’09: Sustained Ocean Observations and Information for Society, vol 2, Venice, Italy, 21–25 September 2009, ESA Publication WPP-306. doi:10.5270/OceanObs09.cwp.27
Fu LL, Cazenave A (2001) Satellite altimetry and earth sciences: a handbook of techniques and applications, Academic, San Diego, CA.
Fu L, Alsdorf D, Rodriguez E, Morrow R, Mognard N, Lambin J, Vaze P, Lafon T (2010) The surface water and ocean topography (SWOT) Mission. In Hall J, Harrison DE, Stammer D (eds) Proceedings of OceanObs’09: Sustained Ocean Observations and Information for Society, vol 2, Venice, Italy, 21–25 September 2009, ESA Publication WPP-306. doi:10.5270/OceanObs09.cwp.33
Gautier C, Diak G, Masse S (1980) A simple physical model to estimate incident solar radiation at the surface from GOES satellite data. J Appl Met 19:1005–1012.
Gentemann CL, Minnett PJ, Sienkiewicz J, DeMaria M, Cummings Y, Doyle JD, Gramer L, Barron CN, Casey KS, Donlon CJ (2009) MISST: Multi-sensor improved sea surface temperature project. Oceanography 22(2):76–87.
Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS) (2010) http://www.earthobservations.org/geoss.shtml. Accessed.
Goni G, Black P, Trinanes J (2003) Using satellite altimetry to identify regions of hurricane intensification, AVISO Newsletter, May, 2003.
Goni G, DeMaria M, Knaff J, Sapson C, Ginnis I, Bringas F, Mavume A, Lauer C, Lin I-I, Ali MM, Sandery P, Ramos-Buargue S, Kang K, Mehra A, Chassignet E Halliwell G (2009) Applications of satellite-derived ocean measurments to tropical cyclone intensity forecasting. Oceanography, The Quarterly Journal of the Oceanography Society 22(3):8.
Guinehut S, Coatanoan C, Dhomps A-L, Le Traon P-Y Larnicol G (2009) On the use of satellite altimeter data in Argo quality control. J Atmos Oceanic Technol 26:395–402.
Gower JFR, King SA, Goncalves P (2008) Global monitoring of plankton blooms using MERIS MCI. Int J Remote Sens 29:6209–6216.
IOCCG (2008) Why ocean colour? The societal benefits of ocean-colour technology. In: Platt T, Hoepffner N, Stuart V, Brown C (eds) Report number 7, Dartmouth, Canada, p 144.
Jackson DL, Wick GA, Bates JJ (2006) Near-surface retrieval of air temperature and specific humidity using multisensory microwave satellite observations. J Geophys Res 111:D10306. doi:10129/2005JD006431.
Jones WL, Schroeder LC, Boggs DH, Bracalente EM, Browb RA, Dome GJ, Pierson WJ, Wentz FJ (1982) The geophysical evaluation of remotely sensed wind vectors over the ocean. J Geophys Res 87:3297–3317.
Joyce RJ, Janowiak JE, Arkin PA, Xie P (2004) CMORPH: A method that produces global precipitation estimates from passive microwave and infrared data at high spatial and temporal resolution. J Hydromet 5:487–503.
Katsaros KB (1980) The aqueous thermal boundary layer. Bound Layer Met 18:107–127.
Katsaros KB, Brown RA (1991) Legacy of the Seasat mission for studies of the atmosphere and air-sea-ice interactions. Bull Am Met Soc 72(7):967–981.
Katsaros KB, Forde EB, Chang P, Liu WT (2001) QuikSCAT facilitates early detection of tropical depressions in 1999 hurricane season. Geophys Res Lett 28:1043–1046.
King MD et al. (1999) Remote sensing of tropospheric aerosol from space: past, present and future. Bull Am Met Soc 80(11):2229–2259. doi:10.1175/1520-0477(1999)080<2229 RSOTAF>2.0CO;2.
Kubota M, Shikauchi A (1995) Air temperature at ocean surface derived from surface-level humidity. J Oceanogr 51:619–634.
Kummerow C, and Coauthors (2000) The status of the tropical rainfall measuring mission (TRMM) after two years in orbit. J Appl Met 39:1965–1982.
Legeckis R, Zhu T (1997) Sea surface temperatures from the GOES-8 geostationary satellite. Bull Am Met Soc 78(9):1971–1983.
Lin I-I, Wu CC, Pun I-E (2008) Upper ocean thermal structure and the western North Pacific category 5 typhoons Part I. Ocean features and category 5 typhoons’ intensification. Mon Wea Rev 136:3288–3306.
Liu WT, Tang W, Xie X, Navalgund RR, Xu K (2008) Power density of ocean surface wind from international scatterometer tandem missions. Int J Remote Sens 29:6109–6116.
Liu WT (1984) Estimation of latent heat flux with SEASAT-SMMR, a case study. in North Atlantic. In: Gautier C, Fieux M (eds) Large-scale oceanographic experiments and satellites. Reidel Press, Dordrecht, pp 205–221.
Lonfat M, Marks FD, Chen SS (2004) Precipitation distribution in tropical cyclones using the tropical rainfall measuring mission (TRMM) microwave imager: a global perspective. Mon Wea Rev 132:1645–1660.
Long DG (2004) Reconstruction of high resolution ocean wind vectors from low resolution scatterometer measurements. Proceedings of the SPIE vol. 5562 Image Reconstruction from Incomplete Data III, Bellingham, WA, SPIE, 196–207.
Nair A, Sathyendranath S, Platt T, Morales J, Stuart V, Forget M-H, Devred E, Bouman H (2008) Remote sensing of phytoplankton functional types. Remote Sens Env 112:3366–3375.
National Research Council (NRC) (2008) Ensuring the climate record from the NPOESS and GOES-R Spacecraft: elements of a strategy to recover measurement capabilities lost in program restructuring; committee on a strategy to mitigate the impact of sensor Descopes and Demanifests on the NPOESS and GOES-R Spacecraft, National Research Council. ISBN-13: 978-0-309-12184-2. 190pp. http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12254#orgs. Accessed.
Ocean Observation Panel for Climate (OOPC) (2010) http://oc-goes-opc.org/state_of_the_ocean/. Accessed.
Peel MC, Finlayson BL, McMahon TA (2007) Updated world map of the Köppen- Geiger climate classification. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 11:1633–1644.
Pinker RT, Lazlo I (1992) Modeling surface solar irradiance for satellite applications on global scale. J App Met 31:194–211.
Poulter C, Merchant J, Bingham A, Heinz S, Harris A, Wick G, Emery B, Minnett P, Evans R, Llewellyn-Jones D, Mutlow C, Reynolds R, Kawamur H, Rayner N (2007) The global ocean data assimilation experiment (GODAE) high resolution sea surface temperature pilot project (GHRSST-PP). Bull Am Met Soc 88(8):1197–1213. doi:10.1175/BAMS-88-8-119.
Reynolds, RW, Smith TM, Liu C, Chelton DB, Casey KS, Schlax MG (2007) Daily high-resolution-blended analyses for sea surface temperature. J Clim 20:5473–5496.
Robinson IS (2004) Measuring the oceans from space: theoretical principles and methods of satellite oceanography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, p 646.
Rossow WB, Duenas EN (2004) The international satellite cloud climatology project, ISCCP, Web site. Bull Am Met Soc 85(2):167–172.
Sathyendranath S, Watts L, Devred E, Platt T, Caverhill C, Maass H (2004) Discrimination of diatoms from other phytoplankton using ocean color data. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 272:59–68.
Saunders PM (1967) The temperature of the ocean-air interface. J Atmos Sci 24:269–273.
Schluessel P, Emery WJ, Grassl H, Mammen T (1990) On the bulk-skin temperature difference and its impact on satellite remote sensing of sea surface temperature. J Geophys Res 95:13341–13356.
Schmetz J (1991) Retrieval of surface radiation fluxes from satellite data. Dyn Atmos Oceans 16:61–72.
Schultz J, Schlüssel P, Graßl H (1993) Water vapor in the atmospheric boundary layer over oceans from SSM/I measurements. Int J Remote Sens 14:2773–2789.
Schultz J, Meywerk J, Ewald S, Schlüssel P (1997) Evaluation of satellite-derived latent heat fluxes. J Clim 10:2782–2795.
Simpson J, Adler RF, North GR (1988) Proposed tropical rainfall measuring mission (TRMM) satellite. Bull Am Met Soc 69:278–295.
Slingo A, Ackerman TP, Allan RP, Kassianov EI, McFarlane SA, Robinson GI, Barnard JC, Miller MA, Harries JE, Russell JE, Dewitte S (2002) Observations of the impact of a major Saharan dust storm on the atmospheric radiation balance. Geophys Res Lett 33:L24817. doi:10.10292006GL027896.
Smith CK, Bettenhausen M, Gaiser PW (2006) A statistical approach to Windsat ocean surface wind vector retrieval. IEEE Geosci Remote Sens Lett 3:164–168.
Smith TM, Reyonolds RW, Peterson TC, Lawrimore J (2008) Improvements to NOAA’s historical merged land-ocean surface temperature analysis (1880–2006). J Clim 21:2283–2296.
Solomon S et al. (eds) (2007) Climate change 2007, the physical science basis. Contribution of working group 1 to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Stephens GL, Kummerow CD (2007) The remote sensing of clouds and precipitation from space: a review. J Atmos Sci 64:3742–3765.
Stoffelen A (1999) A simple method for calibration of a scatterometer over the ocean. J Atmos Ocean Technol 16:275–282.
Yu L, Jin X, Weller RA (2008) Multidecadal global flux Data Sets from the Objectively Analyzed Air-Sea Fluxes (OAFlux) Project: Latent and sensible heat fluxes, ocean evaporation, and related surface meteorological variables, OAFLUX project technical report (OA-2008-01), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, January 2008.
Wentz FJ (2001) Advanced algorithms for QuikScat and SeaWinds/AMSR. IGARSS 2001, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Wentz FJ, Gentemann C, Smith D, Chelton D (2000) Satellite measurements of sea surface temperature through clouds. Science 288:847–850.
Wilson S, Parisot F, Escudier P, Fellous J, Benveniste J, Bonekamp H, Drinkwater M, Fu L, Jacobs G, Lin M, Lindstrom E, Miller L, Sharma R, Thouvenot E (2010) The ocean surface topography constellation: the next 15 years in satellite altimetry. In Hall J, Harrison DE, Stammer D (eds) Proceedings of OceanObs’09: Sustained Ocean Observations and Information for Society, vol 2, Venice, Italy, 21–25 September 2009, ESA Publication WPP-306. doi:10.5270/OceanObs09cwp.92
Zhang HM, Reynolds RW, Lumpkin R, Molinari R, Arzayus K, Johnson M, Smith TM (2009) An integrated global observing system for sea surface temperature using satellites and in situ data: research to operations. Bull Am Met Soc 90:31–38.
Acknowledgements
We appreciate the contribution of: Figure 2.2 by Dr. Stanley Wilson. We are grateful for support by the U.S. National Science Foundation, NSF, by NASA and ESA for the PORSEC 2008 meeting and by the Chinese hosts, especially The South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the chair of the Local Organizing committee, Dr. Danling (Lingzis) Tang, who made arrangements for the Workshop on Climate Data possible on the last day of the conference in Guangzhou, China, December 6, 2008. K. Katsaros gratefully acknowledges support from an NSF research grant to University of Miami, Rosenstiel School, ATM 0631685.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Katsaros, K.B. et al. (2011). Climate Data Issues from an Oceanographic Remote Sensing Perspective. In: Tang, D. (eds) Remote Sensing of the Changing Oceans. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16541-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16541-2_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-16540-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-16541-2
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)