Variability in Sea Surface Temperature Fronts off the U.S. West Coast

Operational sea surface temperature (SST) derived from NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) provides a temporal advantage over SST derived from polar-orbiting satellites: each location is observed 24 times per day. Regions with persistent cloud cover, such as off the coast of California, may benefit from increased observational frequency. Using hourly, cloud-masked SST from GOES-10, a daily-averaged SST product is produced that provides a large spatial SST field for use by an edge-detection algorithm. The near real-time daily frontal products produced at NESDIS/ORA, along with long-term analysis and composites, indicate preferential locations of frontal boundaries, especially upwelling fronts. Additionally, these locations and other products being produced by NESDIS provide information regarding regions of convergent flow, which may have important biological implications regarding fisheries management and the ocean environment.