Source/sensor: Tiros-N/NOAA Advanced Very-High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), NDBC, Japanese and TOGA-TAO moored buoys; AOML and MEDS drifting buoys

Coverage: 1985 - 1993, global

Abstract: This data product supports the NOAA/NASA Oceans Pathfinder sea surface temperature data products. It is a large validation data set consisting of a multi-satellite, multi-year database of AVHRR and in-situ SST matchups with a reasonably wide distribution in space and time. The purpose of the PFMDB is to give interested investigators the option of developing and validating alternative formulas for the computation of AVHRR-derived SSTs. Investigators can validate algorithm performance under a wide range of atmospheric and oceanic regimes. The PFMDB includes in-situ SST data from two main sources: moored buoys and drifting buoys. The moored buoy data include platforms operated by the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC), the Japanese Meterological Agency and TOGA-TAO moored buoys. Data also comes from AOML and MEDS drifting buoys. Matchup databases are produced separately for each year and satellite. Files within the PFMDB are distributed as text files. Documentation is available on-line from http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/~gui/matchups.html. The data is available via FTP.

Data Set Vol: Approximately 34MB

Smallest order: One file

Std. Product: ftp://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/sea_surface_temperature/avhrr/pathfinder/matchups

Formats: ASCII