Variability of the Sea Surface Temperature Obtained by the Statistical Analysis of AVHRR Imagery

A Case Study of the South Japan Sea

Abstract

A simple statistical method based on arithmetic mean and correspondingvariance is proposed for analysis of a time series of NOAA-8 satellite Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) images. We focused on the characteristicsof temporal and spatial variabilities of sea surface temperature depending onmesh sizes used for the statistics. By applying this method to several images ofthe south Japan Sea in spring of 1984, we could clarify some natures of eddieswhich cannot be recognized only by one image. They include life time and spatialscale of eddies.