Abstract
The impact of Tokyo Bay on the atmospheric environmental issues, such as the heat island phenomenon of the Metropolitan Area, may sometimes be attributed to the land-sea breeze mechanism. However, little is known about the diurnal variation of sea surface temperature (SST), the driving force of sea breeze. Water temperature gauges were installed at 14 sites in Tokyo Bay from 1 November 2006 until 24 September 2007. From these observations, the following features about the diurnal SST were found: 1) diurnal range is larger at the head of bay due to small heat capacity, especially in summer; 2) seasonal variation of the diurnal range depends on the solar radiation intensity on non-rainy days and mostly constant on rainy days; and, 3) diurnal range increases on sunny calm days in summer.
