Spatial variability of sea surface temperature in Terengganu waters from MODIS

Abstract

Remote sensing is a practical and cost-effective tool for synoptically monitoring water-surface quality of Terengganu waters at constructive temporal intervals and large spatial scale. Measuring Sea Surface Temperature (SST) using conventional technique is time consuming. While long-term regional and global satellite SST products do exist, they are often limited in terms of spatial resolution and consistency due to uneven sensor performance. The objectives of this study are to determine the sea surface temperature of Terengganu coastal and offshore waters and to find the relationships between in situ and MODIS sea surface temperature. Two categories of data used were in situ SST measurement and satellite images data from MODIS. MODIS datasets that covers Level 2 and 3, were obtained from NASA and were georeferenced to Terengganu region using EPOC module. This study revealed a low variability between SST values in coastal and offshore waters. The range of SST in coastal waters is 29.21 °C to 31.57 °C while offshore waters SST is 28.89 °C to 31.61 °C when comparison were done coastal water are found to be warmer than the offshore water. MODIS data and in situ data shows a good match with average different of 0.59 °C. This study demonstrated that MODIS Level 2 and Level 3 data can successfully be used to obtain SST in Terengganu coastal and offshore waters.