**********************************************************************

                              README

This readme file is for the Coral Reef Watch operational 50 km 
(half-degree) satellite-only nighttime SST climatologies used 
in producing NOAA Coral Reef Watch near-real-time operational 
50 km satellite coral bleaching monitoring products.

**********************************************************************

Creation of these climaologies:

Beginning in mid-1996, more accurate monthly mean SST climatologies
derived solely from satellite nighttime SST observations became
available at higher spatial resolution, 36 km, than any previous
global SST climatologies (at 60-100 km) (Strong et al., 1997).
This made it possible to generate more accurate higher resolution
near-real-time SST anomaly and coral bleaching HotSpot products 
from the CRW nighttime SST field. 

The original 36 km satellite-only reprocessed SST data used for
creating the climatologies were generated from the Multi-Channel
SSTs (MCSSTs) by the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric
Science (RSMAS) of the University of Miami (Gleeson and Strong, 
1995). In-situ SSTs from drifting and moored buoys were used to 
remove any biases, and statistics were compiled with time to 
derive the reprocessed SSTs. The monthly mean SST climatologies 
were then derived by averaging these satellite SSTs during the 
time period of 1985-1993, with observations from the years 1991 
and 1992 omitted due to the aerosol contamination from the 
eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. These climatologies were developed at 
NOAA/NESDIS/STAR (then ORA) before being delivered to NESDIS/OSDPD 
for implementation. The 36 km climatologies were finally 
interpolated into 50 km resolution to match the 50 km resolution 
of the operational SST analysis field.

The Maximum Monthly Mean SST climatology was derived from these
12 monthly mean climatologies by taking the highest monthly mean
climatology values for each pixel.


References:

Gleeson, M. W. and A. E. Strong, 1995. Applying MCSST to coral 
reef Bleaching. Adv. Space Res., 16(10), 10,151-10,154.

Strong, A. E., C. B. Barrientos, C. Duda, and J. Sapper, 1997. 
Improved satellite techniques for monitoring coral reef bleaching. 
Proc 8th International Coral Reef Symposium, Panama City, Panama, 
p 1495-1498. 

=====================================================================

NOAA Coral Reef Watch

April 12, 2007