NOAA Extended Reconstructed SST, V4

The Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) dataset is a global monthly sea surface temperature dataset derived from the International Comprehensive Ocean–Atmosphere Dataset (ICOADS). It is produced on a 2° × 2° grid with spatial completeness enhanced using statistical methods. This monthly analysis begins in January 1854 continuing to the present and includes anomalies computed with respect to a 1971–2000 monthly climatology. The newest version of ERSST, version 4, is based on optimally tuned parameters using the latest datasets and improved analysis methods.

ERSST v4 revisions are based on ERSST v3b. Major improvements include updated and substantially more complete input data from the ICOADS Release 2.5, revised Empirical Orthogonal Teleconnections (EOTs) and EOT acceptance criterion, updated sea surface temperature (SST) quality control procedures, revised SST anomaly (SSTA) evaluation methods, revised low-frequency data filing in data sparse regions using nearby available observations, updated bias adjustments of ship SSTs using Hadley Nighttime Marine Air Temperature version 2 (HadNMAT2), and buoy SST bias adjustments not previously made in v3b. These revisions and their associated improvements are justified in part by subsampling the observations of the modern period (1960–2012) using historical observation masks from the period 1860–1912.

The monthly analysis extends from January 1854 to the present, but because of sparse data in the early years, there is damping of the analyzed signal before 1880. After 1880, the strength of the signal is more consistent over time. ERSST is suitable for long-term global and basin-wide studies, and smoothed local and short-term variations are used in the dataset. The NOAA Global Surface Temperature (NOAAGlobalTemp) (formerly known as the Merged Land-Ocean Surface Temperature dataset) product uses ERSST as input along with land surface air temperature data from the Global Historical Climatology Network-Monthly dataset.

 

References

The following publications describe the processes and procedures for each version of the ERSST dataset.

ERSST v1

Smith, T.M., and R.W. Reynolds, 2003: Extended reconstruction of global sea surface temperatures based on COADS data (1854–1997). Journal of Climate, 16, 1495–1510. doi:10.1175/1520-0442-16.10.1495

ERSST v2

Smith, T.M., and R.W. Reynolds, 2004: Improved extended reconstruction of SST (1854–1997). Journal of Climate, 17, 2466–2477. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<2466:IEROS>2.0.CO;2

ERRST v3

Smith, T.M., R.W. Reynolds, T.C. Peterson, and J. Lawrimore, 2008: Improvements to NOAA's historical merged land–ocean temperature analysis (1880–2006). Journal of Climate, 21, 2283–2296. doi:10.1175/2007JCLI2100.1

Xue, Y., T.M. Smith, and R.W. Reynolds, 2003: Interdecadal changes of 30-Yr SST normals during 1871–2000. Journal of Climate, 16, 1601–1612. doi:10.1175/1520-0442-16.10.1601

ERSST v4

Huang, B., V.F. Banzon, E. Freeman, J. Lawrimore, W. Liu, T.C. Peterson, T.M. Smith, P.W. Thorne, S.D. Woodruff, and H.-M. Zhang, 2014: Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature version 4 (ERSST.v4): Part I. Upgrades and intercomparisons. Journal of Climate, in press, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00006.1.

Liu, W., B. Huang, P.W. Thorne, V.F. Banzon, H.-M. Zhang, E. Freeman, J. Lawrimore, T.C. Peterson, T.M. Smith, and S.D. Woodruff, 2014: Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature version 4 (ERSST.v4): Part II. Parametric and structural uncertainty estimations. Journal of Climate, in press, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00007.1.

Variables
SST (°C), SST  anomaly (°C)
ZonalGlobal by 2.0 deg
Meridional88.0S to 88.0N by 2.0 deg
Verticalsea surface  
Temporal Jan 1854 to (present - 1 month) by 1 month(s)
Static?no
Volume 71KB per variable per month
Server public:
Sourcehttps://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/marineocean-data/extended-reconstructed-sea-surface-temperature-ersst-v4
Acquired Oct 21, 2015 (Updated monthly on 5th)
APDRC contact
Supplements Readme_ersst_v4