Research On Observing Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Based On Passive Microwave Remote Sensing

Sea surface temperature is an important physical parameter of the ocean surface, and it has an irreplaceable position in the field of marine research, climate research, weather forecast and so on. With the rapid development of Information Technology, remote sensing technology has become the major means of observing SST. Passive microwave remote sensing has the advantage of completing the all time, all weather and uninterrupted observations ignoring the clouds interference, which has received more and more attention. As the observation instruments based on passive microwave remote sensing, microwave radiometer has developed into comprehensive data transmission platform with more complex structure, more diverse function and higher accuracy. Therefore, more and more experts and scholars has been working on how to simplify the data processing, set up retrieval model and output business products.The upper half of this paper described the theoretical basis of passive microwave remote sensing, the working principle and the calibration principle of the microwave radiometer and the SST retrieval theory of microwave remote sensing. Then, it introduced equipment parameters and observational characteristics of the advanced microwave sensors in detail, and discussed the commonly used retrieval algorithms,of which, the most representative one is the Multiple Linear Regression Algorithm.The lower half of this paper evaluated the TMI SST data products and its merged data products in the South China Sea. The main method is to match TMI SST data with Argo SST data and MODIS SST data. Then we calculated the accuracy of the product and analyzed the influencing factors.The results show that, TMI SST data has significant linear relation, good consistency and little obvious deviation, no matter matched with the Argo SST data or with the MODIS SST data. The analysis concluded that the main factors affecting the applicability are atmospheric attenuation, rain attenuation, sea surface wind interference, etc. The result of this evaluation will help to improve the microwave retrial algorithms, and to provide a reference for FY-3, HY-2and other domestic satellites which are still in the research stage. It will also provide accurate data for marine research and eventually promote the development in the field of national remote sensing.