Report on the Task Team Feature Fidelity (2021)

Objectives The objective of this task team is to address issues related to the uncertainty of satellite-derived SST fields as relates to ocean features. Uncertainty estimates of SST fields generally apply to the absolute value of the SST of individual pixels as opposed to the relative uncertainty of the value of one pixel to that of another 'nearby' pixel – the precision of the measurement. These two uncertainties can be very different with the latter tending to be more relevant to the study of oceanographic features, e.g., fronts, gradients, eddies, etc., than the former. The task team would like to categorize the classes of problems contributing to the uncertainty associated with mesoscale to submesoscale features and, to the extent possible, outline a methodology for quantifying these effects. To achieve this we define three tasks: 1) the classification of the types of features to be considered, 2) the identification of the ‘effects’ important for the characterization of the uncertainties associated with these features and 3) putting it all together – outlining approaches to determine the uncertainty relevant to the study of mesoscale through submesoscale features observed in SST fields.