• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.139-157
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• 2015

We investigated the relative errors of satellite-observed Surface Skin Temperature (SST) data caused by sea ice in the northern hemispheric ocean ($30-90^{\circ}N$) during April 16-24, 2003-2014 by intercomparing MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Ice Surface Temperature (IST) data with two types of Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) SST data including one with the AIRS/Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU) and the other with 'AIRS only'. The MODIS temperatures, compared to the AIRS/AMSU, were systematically up to ~1.6 K high near the sea ice boundaries but up to ~2 K low in the sea ice regions. The main reason of the difference of skin temperatures is that the MODIS algorithm used infrared channels for the sea ice detection (i.e., surface classification), while microwave channels were additionally utilized in the AIRS/AMSU. The 'AIRS only' algorithm has been developed from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA/GSFC) to prepare for the degradation of AMSU-A by revising part of the AIRS/AMSU algorithm. The SST of 'AIRS only' compared to AIRS/AMSU showed a bias of 0.13 K with RMSE of 0.55 K over the $30-90^{\circ}N$ region. The difference between AIRS/AMSU and 'AIRS only' was larger over the sea ice boundary than in other regions because the 'AIRS only' algorithm utilized the GCM temperature product (NOAA Global Forecast System) over seasonally-varying frozen oceans instead of the AMSU microwave data. Three kinds of the skin temperatures consistently showed significant warming trends ($0.23-0.28Kyr^{-1}$) in the latitude band of $70-80^{\circ}N$. The systematic disagreement among the skin temperatures could affect the discrepancies of their trends in the same direction of either warming or cooling.