Representativeness and certainty of sea surface temperature from MODIS in semi-enclosed bays

ABSTRACT The sea surface temperature estimated by satellites (SSTskin) may facilitate the understanding of processes that affect water quality in semi-enclosed bays. However, the representativeness and certainty of SSTskin in semi-enclosed bays have not been fully investigated. We investigated the SSTskin from MODIS in Tokyo Bay and Ise Bay to test the hypothesis that water-mass structure and proximity to land would affect SSTskin. Results showed that the SSTskin from MODIS in two semi-enclosed bays can be as representative and certain as the data from previous studies in the open ocean. We found that horizontal gradients of water temperature had little effect on the certainty of SSTskin. However, we found that both the representativeness and certainty of satellite-based estimates of SSTskin in semi-enclosed bays were reduced by seasonal and location characteristics. The representativeness and certainty of SSTskin near the mouth of Ise Bay were compromised by the complex vertical structure of water temperature in summer. Because SSTskin may greatly enhance understanding of the processes that affect water quality in semi-enclosed bays, our results indicate that prior validation of SSTskin by comparison with in-situ sea surface temperature (SSTdep) is important.