Hello.
I downloaded sea surface temperature (SST) data from the ERA5 reanalysis products, which has a 3-hour temporal resolution (i.e., 8 times per day).
Naturally, I expect to see different values for different times of day (e.g., 00, 03, 06, 09, etc.), but that’s not the case. For example, the value at 00:00 is 301 K, and at 15:00 it is also 301 K. Why is that?
Moreover, I checked other variables like relative humidity, mean sea level pressure, geopotential, etc. For all of these variables, I do observe different values across different times of day — except for sea surface temperature.
(Just to mention, I am using Python.)
Thank you.
You may verify the data/values with another geospatial software/platform. If positive, you are probably reading the first temperature value of every NetCDF with your code. Best wishes.
Hello.
Thank you for your response. I found the answer. The answer is that SST values only change once a day, although they are available hourly. This is because the SST value is obtained from an external product (for sea ice coverage as well).
Further details are provided in Table 7 of the following paper.
Article The ERA5 global reanalysis
Best regards,
Water is about 800 times the density of air, and it has heat capacity per unit mass that is about 4 times that of air. Furthermore, winds mix up the surface layers, so quite a lot of water is interacting with the air.
Write down the differential equations for heat content variation and you'll see.
Also, you're not looking at data, but a reanalysis product.
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