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| NOAA Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) | |
|---|---|
| Name | NOAA Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) |
| Developer | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |
| Type | Climate dataset |
| First release | 1998 |
| Latest release | ERSSTv5 |
| Format | Gridded monthly fields |
| Domain | Global oceans |
NOAA Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) ERSST is a global monthly sea surface temperature dataset produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information for long-term climate monitoring, trend analysis, and model evaluation. It provides gridded, bias-adjusted, infilled temperature fields that support research in climatology, oceanography, paleoclimatology, teleconnection, and atmospheric science studies. ERSST is widely used by agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and academic institutions including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory.
ERSST supplies monthly global sea surface temperature (SST) analyses on a regular latitude–longitude grid suitable for multi-decadal studies tied to datasets like Hadley Centre's SST products and satellite products from AVHRR and MODIS. The dataset reconstructs SST fields using statistical methods to fill gaps from sparse observations collected by platforms such as merchant vessels, ARGO, and historical Expendable Bathythermograph records. ERSST is a core input for indices including the El Niño–Southern Oscillation measures and contributes to global surface temperature assessments by groups like the WMO and National Climate Assessment.
ERSST integrates observational inputs from instrumental networks and historical archives: shipboard measurements from archives maintained by International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set, buoy data from Global Drifter Program, TAO/TRITON array moorings, and modern ARGO profiling floats. Methodology combines bias adjustments for measurement types (e.g., bucket corrections associated with Research Vessel protocols), quality control influenced by practices from World Ocean Circulation Experiment, and statistical infilling using methods related to Empirical Orthogonal Functions and optimal interpolation approaches developed in collaboration with researchers at NOAA/PMEL and NOAA/GFDL. ERSST applies homogenization to address instrument changes analogous to procedures used in GISS and HadCRUT surface reconstructions.
ERSST has evolved through multiple versions—initial releases in the late 1990s, subsequent updates labeled v2, v3, v4, and the current ERSSTv5—each incorporating revised bias corrections, updated observational archives from International Surface Temperature Initiative, and methodological improvements inspired by studies from James Hansen, Gavin Schmidt, and teams at NOAA/NCEI. Major revisions typically follow peer-reviewed work published in journals such as Journal of Climate and Geophysical Research Letters and respond to findings reported by groups like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the US Global Change Research Program.
ERSST supports climate diagnostics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, operational forecasting at National Weather Service centers, seasonal prediction efforts at ECMWF, and regional impact studies by institutions like NOAA Fisheries and United States Geological Survey. It underpins paleo-reanalysis comparisons with reconstructions from CLIMAP, attribution studies led by teams at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Princeton University, and observational benchmarks for coupled models at NOAA/GFDL, NCAR, and IPSL. ERSST data are used in developing indices such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and for assessing phenomena like marine heatwaves and coral bleaching events documented by organizations including NOAA Coral Reef Watch.
Validation efforts compare ERSST against independent datasets from Argo, satellite SST products from AVHRR and SeaWiFS, and in situ syntheses like ICOADS. Uncertainty quantification follows protocols similar to those used by Hadley Centre and NASA Goddard teams, incorporating ensemble experiments and error propagation for sampling, bias correction, and interpolation. Peer-reviewed evaluations by researchers affiliated with Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Washington, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution highlight strengths in long-term trend representation and limitations in data-sparse regions such as high-latitude seas and Southern Ocean sectors monitored during campaigns like CLIVAR.
ERSST is compared frequently with datasets including HadISST, Reynolds OISST, AVHRR Pathfinder, and NOAA OI SST V2/V3; differences arise from choices in bias correction, spatial resolution, and incorporation of satellite retrievals. While ERSST emphasizes long-term homogeneity for climate trend assessment akin to HadISST, Reynolds OISST and AVHRR products prioritize higher-resolution, near-real-time applications used by Operational Oceanography centers and Coastal Management agencies. Multi-dataset intercomparisons involving groups from University of Reading, CSIRO, and Japan Meteorological Agency inform best practices and ensemble analyses used by the IPCC.
ERSST data are distributed by National Centers for Environmental Information through FTP and data portals commonly used by researchers at NOAA, NASA, and universities including Columbia University. Documentation, retrieval tools, and metadata follow standards advocated by World Meteorological Organization and are compatible with analysis software from groups such as NCAR and Pangeo. Users seeking data typically reference version identifiers (e.g., ERSSTv5) in publications and access archives used by projects like Coupled Model Intercomparison Project and Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment.
Category:Climate datasets