Observing the Mediterranean Sea from space: 21 years of Pathfinder-AVHRR sea surface temperatures (1985 to 2005): re-analysis and validation

The time series of satellite infrared AVHRR data from 1985 to 2005 has been used to produce a daily series of optimally interpolated SST maps over the regular grid of the operational MFSTEP OGCM model of the Mediterranean basin. A complete validation of this OISST (Optimally Interpolated Sea Surface Temperature) product with in situ measurements has been performed in order to exclude any possibility of spurious trends due to instrumental calibration errors/shifts or algorithms malfunctioning related to local geophysical factors. The validation showed that satellite OISST is able to reproduce in situ measurements with a mean bias of less than 0.1K and RMSE of about 0.5K and that errors do not drift with time or with the percent interpolation error.