SeaWiFS data to detect AVHRR-derived SST affected by aerosols

A major source of error in satellite-derived sea surface temperature retrievals is the bias introduced by infrared-absorbing atmospheric aerosols in situations that are previously classified as cloud free into the quality evaluation procedures. This systematic bias is principally significant in Tropical North Atlantic Ocean and Arabian Sea due to desert dust outflows in those regions. To investigate these errors we propose to identify aerosol contaminated data of Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer infrared channels with measurements of Aerosol Optical Thickness as estimated by Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor. Results of this study show the improvements that can be reached combining both space-based remote sensing instruments.