Overview

The OSTIA system produces a high resolution analysis of the current sea surface temperature (SST) for the global ocean.

Latest SST Analysis [Click here for the full resolution png version - 3.5Mb]

Real Time SST monitoring

A selection of plots using OSTIA data to monitor sea surface temperature can be found here.

The OSTIA system

OSTIA uses satellite data provided by the GHRSST project, together with in-situ observations to determine the sea surface temperature. The analysis is performed using a variant of optimal interpolation (OI) described by Bell et al., 2000. The analysis is produced daily at a resolution of 1/20° (approx. 5km).

Data Access

The system is currently under development and all results should be regarded as experimental. OSTIA data is provided in GHRSST-PP netCDF format every day and is available subject to the terms laid out in the Met Office standard Reproduction license and the following data usage statement.

By accessing OSTIA data you agree to the following terms of use: These data may be used for pure academic research only, with no commercial or other application and all usage must meet the Met Office Standard Terms and Conditions. The data may be used for a maximum period of 5 years. Reproduction of the data is permitted provided the following copyright statement is included: © Crown Copyright 2007, published by the Met Office

Important: You must submit a completed data licence application form before the using the data. This only needs to be completed once for each user. If you wish to use copies of the images from these pages, please complete an image reproduction form.

Http access to current OSTIA data files is [here]

Documentation

References

Bell, M.J., R.M. Forbes and A. Hines, 2000, Assessment of the FOAM global data assimilation system for real-time operational ocean forecasting. J. of Marine Systems, 25(2000) 1-22.

John D. Stark, Craig J. Donlon, Matthew J. Martin and Michael E. McCulloch, 2007, OSTIA : An operational, high resolution, real time, global sea surface temperature analysis system., Oceans '07 IEEE Aberdeen, conference proceedings. Marine challenges: coastline to deep sea. Aberdeen, Scotland.IEEE.