Publication Abstracts

Tsuang et al. 2008

Tsuang, B.-J., M.-D. Chou, Y.-C. Zhang, and A. Roesch, 2008: Evaluations of land-Ocean skin temperatures of the ISCCP satellite retrievals and the NCEP and ERA reanalyses. J. Climate, 21, 308-330, doi:10.1175/2007JCLI1502.1.

This study evaluates the skin temperature (ST) datasets of the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) D satellite product, the ISCCP FD satellite product, the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40), the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis, and the NCEP-Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP)-II Reanalysis. The monthly anomalies of all the datasets are correlated to each other and to most of the ground-truth stations with correlation coefficients > 0.50. To evaluate their qualities, the 5 ST datasets are used to calculate clear-sky (CS) outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) and upward surface longwave radiation (USLR); the results are compared with the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) satellite observation and 14 surface stations. The satellite-derived STs and ERA-40 ST tend to bias high on hot deserts (e.g., Sahara Desert), and the reanalyzed STs tend to bias low in mountain areas (e.g., Tibet). In Northern Hemisphere high-latitude regions (tundra, wetlands, deciduous needle-leaf forests, and sea ice), the CS OLR anomalies calculated using the satellite-derived STs have higher correlations and lower root-mean-squared errors with the ERBE satellite observation than those derived from using the reanalyzed STs. ERA-40 underestimates the amplitude of the seasonal ST over glaciers. All the reanalysis products (ERA-40, NCEP-NCAR, and NCEP-DOE AMIP-II) overestimate the ST during partial sea ice-covered periods in the middle-high-latitude oceans. Nonetheless, suspected spurious noises with an amplitude of 2 K in the satellite-derived STs produce a physically unviable anomaly over Earth's surface where the amplitude of the anomaly is weak (such as open-water bodies, croplands, rain forest, grasslands, hot deserts, and cold deserts). Better land-ocean-ice schemes for a reanalysis should be developed for desert regions, high plateaus, fractional sea ice-covered oceans, and seasonally snow-covered lands, where the largest ST errors are identified.

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BibTeX Citation

@article{ts04100j,
  author={Tsuang, B.-J. and Chou, M.-D. and Zhang, Y.-C. and Roesch, A.},
  title={Evaluations of land-Ocean skin temperatures of the ISCCP satellite retrievals and the NCEP and ERA reanalyses},
  year={2008},
  journal={J. Climate},
  volume={21},
  pages={308--330},
  doi={10.1175/2007JCLI1502.1},
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - JOUR
ID  - ts04100j
AU  - Tsuang, B.-J.
AU  - Chou, M.-D.
AU  - Zhang, Y.-C.
AU  - Roesch, A.
PY  - 2008
TI  - Evaluations of land-Ocean skin temperatures of the ISCCP satellite retrievals and the NCEP and ERA reanalyses
JA  - J. Climate
VL  - 21
SP  - 308
EP  - 330
DO  - 10.1175/2007JCLI1502.1
ER  -

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