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Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST.v3b)
click on image for detail |
Fig.1. Annual ERSST.v3b anomaly from 1880-2009 from 60°S and 60°N (solid line) with 95% confidence interval in blue.
Note that the data is more reliable after the 1940's. The magnitude of the temperature increase in recent decades
is much greater than the uncertainty in the data.
The most recent version of the Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) analysis is v3b.
The analysis is based on the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) release 2.4.
At the end of every month, the ERSST analysis is updated with the available GTS ship and buoy data for that month.
The anomalies are computed with respect to a 1971-2000 month climatology (Xue et al. 2003).
We have been improving the analysis over time. Our older version ERSST.v2 is being discontinued.
ERSST.v3 is described in Smith, T.M., R. W. Reynolds, T. C. Peterson, and J. Lawrimore, 2008:
Improvements to NOAA's historical merged land-ocean surface temperature analysis (1880-2006).
J. Climate, 21, 2283-2296. In ERRST.v3 satellite SST data were added to the analysis;
satellite data were never in ERSST.v2. However, the addition of satellite data led to
residual biases.
The ERSST.v3b analysis is exactly as described in the ERSST.v3 paper with one exception:
satellite SST data are not used in ERSST.v3b.
 Analysis Description
ERSST.v3b is generated using in situ SST data and improved statistical methods that allow stable reconstruction using sparse data.
The monthly analysis extends from January 1854 to the present, but because of sparse data in the early years,
the analyzed signal is damped 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; local and short-term variations have been smoothed in ERSST.
For clarification, a brief explanation of the ERSST versions is provided.
ERSST is also used as an input to the Merged Land Ocean Surface Temperature product.
Gridded Data
ASCII format: Monthly ERSST.
See also readme file
NetCDF format: Monthly NetCDF ERSST.
You can make your own plots through the
NCDC
NOMADS Meteorological Data Server
Instructions to
make maps
Instructions to
make time series
You can now plot and extract the data using the LAS server.
http://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov/las/getUI.do
click choose dataset button
select
NOAA Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperatures
then select the dataset variable(s).
There are several options in LAS. For example "MAPS (latitude-longitude)" gives spatial gridded
or plotted values at a specified time, "LINE PLOTS" gives a time series at a spatial point,
and "HOFMULLER PLOTS".
You can plot or extract the temperatures for a space and time range.
ASCII Time series Tables
Monthly and annual land-ocean temperature time series are available from 1880 to present for several zonal bands and 2 special
regions via ftp://eclipse.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/ersstv3b/pdo.
References
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.
ERSST.v2
Smith, T.M., and R.W. Reynolds, 2004:
Improved Extended Reconstruction of SST (1854-1997).
Journal of Climate, 17, 2466-2477.
ERSST.v3
Smith, T.M., R.W. Reynolds, Thomas C. Peterson, and Jay Lawrimore, 2008:
Improvements to NOAA's Historical Merged Land-Ocean Surface
Temperature Analysis (1880-2006).
Journal of Climate,21, 2283-2296.
Xue, Y., T. M. Smith, and R. W. Reynolds, 2003:
Interdecadal changes of 30-yr SST normals during 1871-2000.
J. Climate, 16, 1601-1612.
Contact Information
Viva Banzon
Viva.Banzon@noaa.gov
Dick Reynolds
Richard.W.Reynolds@noaa.gov
Tom Smith
Tom.Smith@noaa.gov
Chunying Liu
Chunying.Liu@noaa.gov
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