NOAA STAR SOCD OceanView: The Level 4 thermal fronts module

Presented at the GHRSST XXIII international science team meeting, 27 June-1 July 2022, online and in-person (Barcelona). #GHRSST23

Short abstract

The NOAA STAR SOCD OceanView (OV) v1.0 was publicly released in May-2021 at https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/socd/ov/. The OV is a web-based application delivering an integrated display of remote sensing, in situ, and model data over oceans, polar areas, coastal and inland waterways. It incorporates products primarily from NOAA and some from NASA and other sources, spanning satellites, aircraft, and models. This visualization tool is still evolving and has several modules, including an experimental thermal front module capable of deriving and interactively visualizing  level-4 fronts. The overall long-term activities of GHRSST Climatology and L4 Inter-comparison Task Team (IC-TT) 3 are to:

1.     Validate L2, L3, and L4 SST gradients in highly variable regions using SailDrones

2.     Produce an online visualization tool for L4-SST gradients

3.     Develop the science to calculate fronts and intercompare

4.     Validate SST gradients/fronts with other independent but related data, e.g., salinity gradients or altimeter currents

5.     Compare feature resolution and its spatial consistency across marine regions

6.     Compare SST gradients over seasonal and interannual time scales

The OceanView tool contributes explicitly to #2 above, will potentially contribute to #3 and #4, and for general visualization purposes. It offers an interactive visualization with various filters to sub-select fronts and a profiler to analyze individual fronts. Currently, it has only one L4 SST front (NOAA GOES-POES blended). However, the system is scalable and will be expanded depending on identified needs and the path forward. This preliminary presentation aims to gauge features of interest and potential extension to meet GHRSST TT objectives.