A bias correction method for Arctic satellite sea surface temperature observations

A significant improvement is seen when the corrected satellite products are used for the SST analysis. When compared against drifting buoys, not included in the analysis, the corrected level 4 satellite SST product shows a bias of − 0.04 K and standard deviation of 0.54 K, compared to an original bias of − 0.28 K and standard deviation of 0.61 K. The effect of a missing reference sensor is assessed for the full period. Level 4 test runs using only one reference sensor demonstrates that improvements can be obtained with a single sensor bias correction method, and that the AATSR sensor gives the largest improvements. However, using both reference sensors in the bias calculation gives significantly better performance than using just one.