WMO OSCAR | Details for Variable: Sea surface temperature

Variable: Sea surface temperature

Definition

Full name	Sea surface temperature
Definition	Temperature of the sea water at surface. The “bulk” temperature refers to the depth of typically 2 m, the “skin” temperature refers to within the upper 1 mm.
Measuring Units	K	Uncertainty Units	K
Horizontal Res Units	km	Vertical Res Units
Stability Units	K (Stability /decade)

Comment:	Detailed SST definitions are available from GHRSST: https://www.ghrsst.org/ghrsst-science/sst-definitions/
Last modified:	2011-06-15
Applied in OSCAR/Space Gap Analysis:	Yes

Classification

Domain: Ocean
- Sub-domain: Ocean
  - Variable: Sea surface temperature
    - Measured in Layers:
      - Sea surface
      - Bulk

Cross-cutting themes:

Earth System Application Categories and its related Application Areas:
- 2. Atmospheric Applications
- 2. Atmospheric Applications
- 2. Atmospheric Applications
- 2. Atmospheric Applications
- 2. Atmospheric Applications
- 2. Atmospheric Applications
- 3. Oceanic Applications
Unknown:

Requirements defined for Sea surface temperature (11)

This tables shows all related requirements. For more operations/filtering, please consult the full list of Requirements
Note: In reading the values, goal is marked blue, breakthrough green, threshold orange
Application-dependent Technical Priority (ATP) Magenta and Relative priority of the attributes Red

Id	Variable	Layer	App Area	ATP	Uncertainty	Stability / decade	Hor Res	Obs Cyc	Timeliness	Coverage	Conf Level	Val Date	Source	General Comment	Application Area Comment	Observation Comment
6	Sea surface temperature	Sea surface	CLIC (deprecated)		0.5 K 0.8 K 2 K		25 km 39.7 km 100 km	24 h 30 h 2 d	30 d 38 d 60 d	Global ocean	reasonable	1998-10-29	WCRP
106	Sea surface temperature	Sea surface	Climate-AOPC (deprecated)		0.25 K 0.4 K 1 K		10 km 50 km 500 km	3 h 6 h 24 h	3 h 6 h 12 h	Global ocean	firm	2007-07-19	AOPC	Bulk. Signal size supports this need. See P.D. Jones et al. 1999. Surface air temperature and its changes over the past 150 years. Rev. Geophys., in press.
201	Sea surface temperature	Sea surface	CLIVAR (deprecated)		0.1 K 0.2 K 0.3 K		10 km 20 km 50 km	3 h 4 h 6 h	24 h 36 h 3 d	Global ocean	reasonable	1998-10-29	WCRP
292	Sea surface temperature	Sea surface	2.1 Global Numerical Weather Prediction and Real-time Monitoring		0.3 K 0.5 K 1 K		5 km 15 km 250 km	3 h 24 h 5 d	3 h 24 h 5 d	Global ocean	firm	2009-02-10	John Eyre
370	Sea surface temperature	Sea surface	2.2 High-Resolution Numerical Weather Prediction		0.3 K 0.5 K 1 K		1 km 5 km 20 km	60 min 2 h 6 h	30 min 60 min 6 h	Global ocean	firm	2011-08-04	JF Mahfouf
444	Sea surface temperature	Sea surface	2.3 Nowcasting / Very Short-Range Forecasting		0.5 K 0.8 K 2 K		5 km 10 km 50 km	3 h 6 h 24 h	3 h 6 h 24 h	Global ocean	firm	2013-04-03	P. Ambrosetti
560	Sea surface temperature	Sea surface	Climate-OOPC (deprecated)		0.1 K 0.126 K 0.2 K		1 km 8 km 500 km	60 min 3 h 24 h	3 h 5 h 12 h	Global ocean	reasonable	2007-07-19	OOPC
737	Sea surface temperature	Sea surface	2.8 Aeronautical Meteorology		1 K 2 K 5 K		5 km 11 km 50 km	60 min 60 min 2 y	1 y 1 y 2 y	Global	firm	2014-03-27	J van der Meulen
757	Sea surface temperature		2.4 Sub-Seasonal to Longer Predictions		0.1 K 0.2 K 0.5 K		50 km 85.5 km 250 km	3 h 6 h 12 h	3 h 6 h 24 h	Global ocean	firm	2009-01-19	Laura Ferranti	Tropical ocean most important
835	Sea surface temperature	Sea surface	2.5 Atmospheric Climate Monitoring	0.5	0.1 K	0.03 K	1 km 100 km	60 min 7 d		Global	reasonable	2019-10-15	GCOS-200: The Global Observing System for Climate: Implementation Needs (Published 2016)	Requirements in the GCOS-200 IP, Annex A, are only specified at the goal level.
1023	Sea surface temperature	Sea surface Bulk	3.3 Oceanic Climate Monitoring and Services	0.5	0.05 K 0.3 K	0.01 K 0.1 K	5 km 100 km		3 h 24 h	Global	reasonable	2023-08-17	GCOS-245: The 2022 ECVs Requirements (GCOS-245)	Requirements for uncertainty are specified at 2-sigma	OOPC (GOOS/GCOS/WCRP) is custodian of this Application Area	Both sea surface (skin, remote sensing) and bulk (buoys, in situ platforms) are implicitly considered