| Summary: | The Eumetsat Satellite Application Facility on Ocean and Sea Ice (OSISAF) is heading towards the end of its Initial Operations Phase (IOP) and a proposal for the Continuous Development and Operations Phase (CDOP) is currently being finalised. During the IOP a proposal for a new product was endorsed and development of algorithms for the Global Metop/AVHRR SST started in 2005. The Global Metop/AVHRR SST product is expected to be in operation and available to users in 2008. Pre-operational production should, however, start in 2007 after the end of the Metop commissioning phase. This paper focuses on the development and validation of the cloud mask algorithm for the Global Metop/AVHRR SST product. The cloud mask algorithm is technically founded in the MAIA-v3 algorithm, which is coherent with and has strongly inherited from the NWCSAF/MSG Cloud Mask version 1.2. However, scientifically the new Metop/AVHRR MAIA cloud mask seeks to inherit from both MAIA-v3 and the NWCSAF/PPS scheme. Where MAIA was originally developed for global cloud masking for the HIRS FOV, the PPS Cloud Mask was developed for local AVHRR processing and Nowcasting and for use in the high-latitude OSISAF production. The PPS cloud mask was not originally developed with global processing in mind, but rather it has been developed to cope as well as possible with the generally difficult situations at high latitudes. This project attempts to make the best possible cloud mask over sea from the two different, but still very similar, thresholding schemes, the MAIA-v3 and the PPS. Here we present and discuss recent global inter-comparison and validation results, and provide a summary conclusion for the Global Metop/AVHRR SST product. 1.
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