Sea Surface Temperature Inversion of the Southern South China Sea from MODIS and Temporal and Spatial Variation Analysis

The sea surface temperature in the southern South China Sea has a significant influence on the climate change of China land. In the paper, on the basis of the geometric correction and cloud removal of MODIS basic data in the southern South China Sea, the atmospheric transmittance was calculated by MODTRAN Model, and the brightness temperature was calculated by the radiance intensity of the MODIS 31, 32 channels. The split-window algorithm was used to retrieve the sea surface temperature in the southern South China Sea. Finally, the accuracy was evaluated byR ², SSE, RMSE and the regression analysis between retrieved temperature and the products temperature or ground measured temperature.R ² is lager than 0.8. SSE and RMSE are all smaller. The inversion accuracy is good. The research showed the distinct seasonal variation of lower temperature in autumn and winter and higher temperature in spring and summer. The research still showed the fundamental variation of temperature with declines from the near shore to the center of the sea, and lowest temperature over the deep basin. The sea surface temperature was affected by variations of weather. The sea surface temperature was positively correlated with El Ni?o, and was negatively correlated with La Ni?a.