The 70m pixel scale ECOSTRESS thermal radiometer on the International Space Station serves as a precursor for future high resolution thermal missions including TRISHNA (ISRO/CNES), SBG (NASA), and LSTM (ESA). The ECOSTRESS spatial sampling scale matches 1 to 5 minute observations from autonomous Saildrone platforms. We compared Saildrone SST (IR and thermistor) to ECOSTRESS skin temperatures in upwelling regions off California.  In clear sky conditions, bias-corrected ECOSTRESS skin temperature is highly correlated with in-situ observations from Saildrones (R2>0.80, RMSE < 0.35 C).   ECOSTRESS 370 × 420 km scenes provide much needed spatial context for the in-situ trajectory observations, including temperature, salinity, chlorophyll and oxygen, by linking them to the 2-D spatial locations of thermal fronts, filaments and eddies that are not resolvable by other space-based radiometers.

Primary Presenter: David Wethey, University of South Carolina (wethey@biol.sc.edu)

Authors:

Nicolas Weidberg, Universidad de Oviedo  (weidbergnicolas@uniovi.es)

Jorge Vazquez-Cuervo, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory  (jorge.vazquez@jpl.nasa.gov)