JISAO data
NCEP EOF-filtered sea surface temperatures, 1950-2000
This data set is being replaced by the extended reconstructed sea surface temperature (ERSST) data set. I'm am not sure how often they are going to update the ERSST.

Tom Smith, Dick Reynolds, and collaborators at the NOAA NCEP Climate Modeling Branch (CMB) produced an SST data set that has been smoothed and filled with EOFs. In the past, Dick Reynolds has suggested that people use the Optimal Interpolation SST analysis for the period 1982-present. In late 1999, however, I noticed that they are now updating this data set up to the present. This data set is now being updated annually.

Anomalies are calculated for the latitude range 70N-46S and the higher latitude anomalies are set to zero. Land grid points within 70N-46S are also given anomaly values. The anomalies are then added to a climatology to provide a total SST field. The January 1950 map is shown below to illustrate these points.
Data:
  • netCDF format for 1950-2000 (19.8 Mb).
    The data resides on the JISAO computers as
    /home/disk/tao/data/sst_ncep/eof/ssteof19502000.nc for the monthly data
    /home/disk/tao/data/sst_ncep/eof/ssteofclim5079.nc for the 1950-79 monthly climatology and annual mean
    The monthly data.
    1950-79 monthly climatology and annual mean.
    Landmask (0 for land, 1 for ocean).
    All errors in the netCDF files are due to Todd Mitchell.
  • The data is also available in ASCII format from the NCDC ftp site.

    Documentation and reference:
    Documentation
    Smith, T. M., R. W. Reynolds, R. E. Livezey, and D. C. Stokes, 1996: Reconstruction of historical sea surface temperatures using empirical orthogonal functions. J. Climate, 9, 1403-1420.

    Thomas Smith (Tom.Smith@noaa.gov)
    Richard Reynolds (Richard.W.Reynolds@noaa.gov)
    February 2001
    Todd Mitchell (mitchell@atmos.washington.edu)
    JISAO data