A multi-scale high-resolution analysis of global sea surface temperature

The Multi-Resolution Variational Analysis (MRVA) method allows the MUR analysis to use multiple synoptic time scales, including a 5-day data window used for reconstruction of mesoscale features and data windows of only few hours for the smaller scale features. Reconstruction of fast evolving small scale features and interpolation over persistent large data voids can be achieved simultaneously by the use of multiple synoptic windows in the multi-scale setting. The MRVA method is also a “mesh-less” interpolation procedure that avoids truncation of the geolocation data during gridding and binning of satellite samples. Future improvements of the MUR SST analysis will include ingestion of day-time MODIS retrievals as well as more recent high-resolution SST retrievals from VIIRS.