The Past, Present, and Future of the AVHRR Pathfinder SST Program

摘要

With today's modern satellite sensors, many oceanic parameters are capable of being observed from space. Of these, only sea surface temperature (SST) from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) series on board the NOAA polar-orbiting satellites enjoys an unbroken, nearly 30-year long history of obser-vation from the same class of instrument. These AVHRR observations date back to 1981, when the first five-channel AVHRR flew on board the NOAA-7 platform. The AVHRR series continues to fly today, and will continue perhaps another 10 years into the future on board the remaining NOAA polar orbiting satellites and the European METOP platforms.