Monthly Sea Surface Temperatures

Term: from January 1850 to latest
Area: 89.5S - 89.5N, 0.5E - 359.5E, 1 degree x 1 degree
Method: Centennial in situ Observation-Based Estimates of the Variability of SST and Marine Meteorological Variables, version 2 (COBE-SST2)

Explanation:
This SST dataset named 'COBE-SST2' has been newly produced with the method proposed by Hirahara et al., 2014,
which is an update of the previous COBE-SST (Ishii et al., 2005).
SSTs under sea ice area are determined according to a statistical relation between sea-ice concentration and SST,
considering freezing points of sea water as a function of climatological sea surface salinity.
The historical database of in situ observations used in the SST analysis includes about 455 million reports
from the International Comprehensive Ocean and Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) release 2.5.
The reports via global telecommunication system (GTS) after 1997 are also used in the analysis.
Monthly normals and standard deviations for a thirty-year period from 1991 to 2020 are also available in this directory.
The interim SST for the last month is put up on the 7th each month, and it is replaced by the final SST on the 7th in the following month. 
The final SST is produced on the 7th of the month after next when a large enough SST data has been collected.

Data Format:
One data file consists of 181 records, one header record and 180 data records from north to south. 
The header record contains the year and month in four digits each from the left. 
Each data record includes 360 grid point values and each value is written in three digits from west to east, with unit in 0.1 degree Celsius. 
That is, the first value of the first data record is for the grid centered at 89.5N and 0.5E, 
and the last value of the last data record is for that at 89.5S and 359.5E, respectively. 
'999' denotes the region of land and the value cannot be determined. 

References:
Hirahara, S., M. Ishii and Y. Fukuda, 2014:
Centennial-scale sea surface temperature analysis and its uncertainty. J. Climate, 27, 57-75.
Ishii, M., A. Shouji, S. Sugimoto and T. Matsumoto, 2005: 
Objective Analyses of Sea-Surface Temperature and Marine Meteorological Variables for the 20th Century using ICOADS 
and the KOBE Collection. Int. J. Climatol., 25, 865-879.

For further information, please contact to administrator of the Regional Real Time Data Base at neargoos@climar.kishou.go.jp.