An Assessment on Integrating Satellite and in-Situ Data to Generate Globally Gridded Surface Temperature Products

Abstract:

Presently there exist data gaps in global surface temperature products such as NOAATemp and other international datasets. Studies have indicated that these data gaps may have an impact on derived global temperature trends in these datasets, particularly in the recent decade or so. This is an important area for improving the NOAATemp dataset. While gaps in in situ data coverage are expected to continue in the foreseeable future, satellite data are available over these regions, and some studies have shown the potential usefulness of satellite data to mitigate the impact of these gaps in in situdata. Thus it is important to systematically evaluate the potential utility of satellite data in gap filling, such as using the NOAA NCDC’s 2-m air temperature dataset retrieved from NOAA POES satellite’s HIRS measurements.

Comparisons of monthly gridded HIRS T2m to NOAATemp will be presented. Similarities and differences in spatial patterns, global averages, and trends between the two data sets will be shown and discussed, including zonal, meridional, and global averages and other statistics. High-quality USCRN station data and HIRS will also be compared, and RMSE and biases will be analyzed and presented.